Chemicals produced by an animal to affect the behavior or physiology of another member of the species are called pheromones, and at least some species in all the major animal groups are known to produce pheromones. These chemicals attract a potential mate from a distance, have specific sex or kin recognition, and involve many aspects of social behavior. Among mammals, pheromones may provide information about sex, age, genetic similarity, reproductive state, sexual arousal, dominance status, territorial boundary, time of last marking, and even emotional state, such as fear or anger. A pheromone may consist of a single compound but usually involves a mixture of different compounds. For the most part, the individual chemicals are not unique to the organism producing them, although the combinations of chemicals may be unique.

Pheromones may be categorized as releasers and primers. A releaser pheromone has an immediate effect on the behavior of the recipient, whereas a primer pheromone affects the recipient’s physiology, producing an effect on behavior after a period of time. Releaser pheromones are perceived by chemosensory neurons in the recipient’s peripheral nervous system. This is probably also true of primers, although this is not always known. It is possible that in some cases primers have a direct effect on an animal’s metabolism after being taken into the body.

The characteristics of a compound or suite of compounds employed as a pheromone are determined by the pheromone’s function and the context in which it is used. To have an effect at a distance from the producer, the compound must be volatile, enabling it to be readily dispersed. In general, within a class of compounds, smaller molecules are more volatile than larger ones. For example, ethanol (C₂H₅OH) is about 100 times more volatile than hexanol (C₆H₁₃OH) and about 10,000 times more volatile than undecanol (C₁₁H₂₃OH), and formic acid (HCOOH) is about 100 times more volatile than pentanoic acid (C₄H₉COOH) and 10,000 times more volatile than octanoic acid (C₇H₁₅COOH). On the other hand, larger, nonvolatile compounds may be important when animals are in close contact, when taste is important.

A second critical feature of many pheromones is specificity. A sex-attractant pheromone would be disadvantageous if it also attracted individuals of other species. Specificity is dependent to some extent on the degree to which a particular molecular structure can be modified; for example, there are more possible permutations of the structure of a molecule with a backbone of 10 carbon atoms than of a molecule with a backbone of only 2 carbons. The need for volatility may conflict with the need for specificity, and the animal may need to compromise (in an evolutionary sense) to produce molecular structures that meet both requirements. Distance-attractant pheromones require both volatility and specificity. For example, the sex-attractant pheromones of most moths are molecules containing 12, 14, 16, or 18 carbon atoms, and the aggregation pheromones of bark beetles, which attract huge numbers of conspecifics (members of the same species), comprise molecules with about 8–10 carbon atoms.

An alternative way to achieve specificity is to use mixtures of compounds and to vary the relative proportions of the components. An example of this is seen in moths of the genus Spodoptera. Numerous species in this genus have sex-attractant pheromones with 14-carbon atom compounds, but all these species produce more than one compound, and some are known to produce more than seven compounds. The compounds differ primarily in the presence or absence and position of double bonds located between the carbon atoms that form the backbone of the molecule. By using different proportions of the same compounds, each species can produce its own specific odor. This approach makes it possible to achieve not only species specificity but also individual specificity within a species, which is important in social contexts. Large numbers of compounds, often more than 50, in secretions of the preorbital and pedal glands of antelope and the urine of many mammals appear to reflect the need for individual specificity. Social hymenopterans use cuticular hydrocarbons in kin recognition, and there may be 20 or more such compounds on the surface of a single insect.

Alarm pheromones, produced by some animals and best known in insects, have quite different requirements. An alarm pheromone needs high volatility, since it is used to quickly warn other individuals and must rapidly decay from the immediate environment. With a persistent compound the insects would be in a continual state of alarm or would habituate to the odor, thus reducing its value as an alarm pheromone. On the other hand, an alarm pheromone does not require a high degree of specificity, since it is usually not a disadvantage if other species detect the odor. As a consequence, very small molecules are used as alarm pheromones. In formicine ants, formic acid (HCOOH) often serves this function, and, in general, the alarm pheromones of ants and bees are compounds with 5–9 carbon atoms.

Marking pheromones require characteristics opposite those of alarm pheromones, since their function is to convey a signal to other members of the species for a relatively long term. Thus, they demand some persistence, though not so much that they remain when their utility is past. Trails marked by pheromones are commonly produced by worker ants as they return to the nest from foraging. The trail persists as long as the food source that it is connected to remains available and as long as the trail pheromone is reinforced by the returning workers. The territorial marks of vertebrates are also maintained by periodic reinforcement. Persistence can also be achieved in other ways. The persistence of territorial marks made by tigers is aided by the presence in the pheromone mixture of compounds that delay the loss of volatile compounds. The marking scents of skunks, which are also used for defense (see below behavior and chemoreception: Defensive odors), may retain persistence by incorporating a chemical that breaks down slowly to produce the dominant effective compound.

Mixtures of compounds have the potential to provide greater information than single compounds. This appears to be true of some antelope markings that change with time, enabling the recipient to adjust its behavior appropriately. Leafcutter ants (genus Atta) have alarm pheromones consisting of four components with different volatilities. Coupled with differences in the sensitivity of worker ants, the different volatilities produce different areas over which the compounds are most effective, and they stimulate different behaviors. Hexanal, with the greatest effective area, alerts worker ants, and hexanol has an attractant effect. In contrast, 3-undecanone and 2-butyl-2-octenol, the least volatile and thus most concentrated closest to the pheromone source, initiate biting behavior.

Movement toward an odor source

Attraction to the source of an odor poses problems for all animals using the sense of smell. It had been supposed that animals simply moved up a concentration gradient, from an area of low odor concentration to an area of high odor concentration, ending near the source of an odor. However, consideration of the movement of odor molecules in air or water showed that, in general, such gradients do not exist under natural conditions. Wind flow varies in both direction and strength. In addition, during the day, when the ground is heated, rising and falling air movements contribute to turbulence. As a result, odor molecules, even when continuously released at the source, become dispersed as a series of wisps, similar to the way that smoke from a chimney becomes dispersed. As a consequence, a stationary animal or an animal moving toward an odor source in a straight line will encounter bursts of odor with relatively long intervals between bursts. This is true whatever the distance from the source, although at short distances bursts contain more peaks with high concentrations of odor molecules. Only by averaging the concentration over a period of time and distance is it possible to follow a gradient of odor. Some animals may do this, but insects (and probably many other organisms) use a different strategy. In these organisms an odor has the effect of switching on a behavioral program that uses some signal other than odor to locate the source. In many cases the other signal is wind direction, and the animal moves upwind, ultimately arriving at the source of an odor. This mechanism is called odor-modulated anemotaxis. It is used by male moths to locate females, by moths flying to a flower odor to obtain nectar, and by cabbage root flies flying toward a cabbage plant to lay eggs.

Wind direction may be determined by its mechanical effect on the body, and in insects this involves structures at the bases of the antennae and mechanosensory hairs on the head. The behavior involved in moving upwind varies. Larval insects such as those of the desert locust walk directly upwind if they smell food after having been without it for some time, and adult golden rod beetles exhibit similar behavior. Cabbage root flies, when they perceive the host odor, orient into the wind while still on the ground and then make a short, straight flight of perhaps one meter before landing. The arrival of a new puff of odor causes them to reorient to the wind and repeat the process. Thus, their movement toward the odor source involves a series of short flights. However, in many insects odor causes takeoff into the wind, followed by a zigzagging flight toward the source, much as a sailboat might tack into the wind. During most of the movement, the insect is flying across the wind with its body oriented obliquely upwind. As a result, it drifts sideways, as an airplane does in high winds. This sideways drift produces a flow of images of the ground across the insect’s eyes, and the insect adjusts its power output to maintain its general upwind movement. The same mechanism is used by nocturnal insects. However, in some day-flying insects such as tsetse flies, the flight toward an odor source may be much more direct, with the odor causing takeoff but flight being directed toward any moving object that is visible upwind.

Odor gradients, in which the concentration declines progressively with increasing distance from the source, probably do exist in very still environments such as those occurring in the soil. The soil-dwelling larvae of some insects that feed on roots, such as the corn root worm (the larva of a beetle), have been shown to move along chemical gradients.

Reproductive behavior