IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0069889.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exposure to Odors of Rivals Enhances Sexual Motivation in Male Giant Pandas

Author

Listed:
  • Xiaoxing Bian
  • Dingzhen Liu
  • Hua Zeng
  • Guiquan Zhang
  • Rongping Wei
  • Rong Hou

Abstract

Males will alter their mating behavior to cope with the presence of their competitors. Even exposure to odors from potential competitors can greatly increase male ejaculate expenditure in a variety of animals including insects, fishes, birds and rodents. Major efforts have been made to examine males' plastic responses to sperm competition and its fitness benefits. However, the effects of competitor absence on male's sexual motivation and behaviors remain unclear, which has been proposed to be one of the causes for the poor sexual performance of some captive mammals. This study revealed that sexual motivation can be greatly enhanced in captive male giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) by exposure to chemosensory cues from either one or three conspecifics males. It had been shown that potential rivals' odors increased males' chemosensory investigation behavior, as well as their observing, following and sniffing behaviors towards estrous females. Behaviors changed regardless of the number of rivals (one or three). Our results demonstrate the effects of potential competition on male giant pandas' sexual motivation and behavioral coping strategy. We anticipate that our research will provide a fresh insight into the mechanisms underlying poor sexual performance in male captive mammals, and valuable information for the practical management and ex situ conservation of endangered species.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiaoxing Bian & Dingzhen Liu & Hua Zeng & Guiquan Zhang & Rongping Wei & Rong Hou, 2013. "Exposure to Odors of Rivals Enhances Sexual Motivation in Male Giant Pandas," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(8), pages 1-5, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0069889
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0069889
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0069889
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0069889&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0069889?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tommaso Pizzari & Charles K. Cornwallis & Hanne Løvlie & Sven Jakobsson & Tim R. Birkhead, 2003. "Sophisticated sperm allocation in male fowl," Nature, Nature, vol. 426(6962), pages 70-74, November.
    2. Javier delBarco-Trillo & Michael H. Ferkin, 2004. "Male mammals respond to a risk of sperm competition conveyed by odours of conspecific males," Nature, Nature, vol. 431(7007), pages 446-449, September.
    3. Amanda Bretman & Claudia Fricke & Primrose Hetherington & Rachel Stone & Tracey Chapman, 2010. "Exposure to rivals and plastic responses to sperm competition in Drosophila melanogaster," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 21(2), pages 317-321.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Samuel P Caro & Léo Pierre & Matthieu Bergès & Raldi Bakker & Claire Doutrelant & Francesco Bonadonna, 2021. "Mutual mate preferences and assortative mating in relation to a carotenoid-based color trait in blue tits," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 32(6), pages 1171-1182.
    2. Brian Gray & Leigh W. Simmons, 2013. "Acoustic cues alter perceived sperm competition risk in the field cricket Teleogryllus oceanicus," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 24(4), pages 982-986.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0069889. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.