title: The Sex Attractant Pheromone of Male Brown Rats: Identification and Field Experiment.
abstract: Trapping brown rats is challenging because they avoid newly placed traps in their habitat. Herein, we report the identification of the sex pheromone produced by male brown rats and its effect on trap captures of wild female brown rats. Collecting urine- and feces-soiled bedding material of laboratory-kept rats and comparing the soiled-bedding odorants of juvenile and adult males, as well as of adult males and females, we found nine compounds that were specific to, or most prevalent in, the odor profiles of sexually mature adult males. When we added a synthetic blend of six of these compounds (2-heptanone, 4-heptanone, 3-ethyl-2-heptanone, 2-octanone, 2-nonanone, 4-nonanone) to one of two paired food-baited trap boxes, these boxes attracted significantly more laboratory-strain female rats in laboratory experiments, and captured ten times more wild female rats in a field experiment than the corresponding control boxes. Our data show that the pheromone facilitates captures of wild female brown rats.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada.
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Takács
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada.
authors.forename: Regine
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gries
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada.|Department of Chemistry, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada.
authors.forename: Huimin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhai
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. gries@sfu.ca.
authors.forename: Gerhard
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Gries
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005260:Female; D008401:Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry; D008297:Male; D009812:Odorants / Q000032:analysis; D051381:Rats; D012724:Sex Attractants / Q000032:analysis* / Q000494:pharmacology; D012726:Sexual Behavior, Animal / Q000187:drug effects
chemical_list: D012724:Sex Attractants
keywords: brown rats; field experiments; ketones; pheromones