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- Title
Sea Lamprey Alarm Cue Comprises Water- and Chloroform- Soluble Components.
- Authors
Mensch, Emily L.; Dissanayake, Amila A.; Nair, Muraleedharan G.; Wagner, C. Michael
- Abstract
A diversity of aquatic organisms manage predation risk by avoiding waters activated with conspecific alarm cues, a chemical mixture released from injuries. The sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) is a nocturnal migratory species that relies on its alarm cue to navigate around areas of predation risk when moving through river channels. Identification of the cue's chemistry would allow managers to harness this innate behavioral response to guide migrating sea lamprey to traps (invasive population in the Laurentian Great Lakes) or to fish passage devices where dams block migrations in their native range. We pursued isolation of the sea lamprey alarm cue through behaviorally guided fractionation, fractionating the alarm cue into water-soluble and chloroform-soluble fractions, each of which elicited a substantial avoidance response. Recombining the two fractions restored full reactivity, suggesting the alarm cue mixture contains components that exhibit high solubility in water (e.g., nitrogenous compounds), chloroform (e.g., lipids), or perhaps materials that dissolve readily in either solvent. We further screened 13 individual compounds or pure isolates and 6 sub-fractions from the water-soluble fraction and found one of the pure isolates, isoleucine, evoked an avoidance response on its own, but not consistently when found in other mixtures. In a third experiment, we observed no behavioral response after recombining 32 compounds isolated and identified from the water-soluble fraction. These results confirm other suggestions that the process of elucidating alarm cue constituents is challenging. However, we suggest the pursuit is worthwhile given the strong evidence for the utility of alarm cues for use in the conservation and management of fishes and other aquatic organisms.
- Subjects
SEA lamprey; RIVER channels; FISHWAYS; FISH conservation; ALARMS; MIGRATORY animals; CHLOROFORM
- Publication
Journal of Chemical Ecology, 2022, Vol 48, Issue 9/10, p704
- ISSN
0098-0331
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s10886-022-01384-0