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The Chemical Ecology of Elephants: 21st Century Additions to Our Understanding and Future Outlooks - PubMed

  • ️Fri Jan 01 2021

Review

The Chemical Ecology of Elephants: 21st Century Additions to Our Understanding and Future Outlooks

Bruce A Schulte et al. Animals (Basel). 2021.

Abstract

Chemical signals are the oldest and most ubiquitous means of mediating intra- and interspecific interactions. The three extant species of elephants, the Asian elephant and the two African species, savanna and forest share sociobiological patterns in which chemical signals play a vital role. Elephants emit secretions and excretions and display behaviors that reveal the importance of odors in their interactions. In this review, we begin with a brief introduction of research in elephant chemical ecology leading up to the 21st century, and then we summarize the body of work that has built upon it and occurred in the last c. 20 years. The 21st century has expanded our understanding on elephant chemical ecology, revealing their use of odors to detect potential threats and make dietary choices. Furthermore, complementary in situ and ex situ studies have allowed the careful observations of captive elephants to be extended to fieldwork involving their wild counterparts. While important advances have been made in the 21st century, further work should investigate the roles of chemical signaling in elephants and how these signals interact with other sensory modalities. All three elephant species are threatened with extinction, and we suggest that chemical ecology can be applied for targeted conservation efforts.

Keywords: chemical signals; conservation; husbandry; interspecific interactions; mate assessment; musth; pheromone; reproduction.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1

Series of stereotyped chemosensory behaviors present in African and Asian elephants (shown here with a male Asian elephant), adapted from [45,46].

Sniff

: elephant holds trunk over signal of interest.

Check

: dorsal tip (“finger”) of trunk contacts signal.

Place

: entire end of trunk contacts signal.

Flehmen

: trunk transports signal to orifice of vomeronasal ducts. In order, these behaviors indicate the level of interest in a signal and may be used readily in bioassays among wild and captive elephant populations. Yellow circles are chemical signals of interest, and blue arrows show points of contact of the trunk with the chemicals.

Figure 2
Figure 2

Summary of 21st-century findings in intraspecific chemical signaling among elephants. EM = Elephas maximus, the Asian elephant. LA = Loxodonta africana, the African savanna elephant. Red indicates female–female signals, blue indicates male–male signals, and purple indicates intersexual signals.

Figure 3
Figure 3

Potential applications of chemical signals for the conservation, management, and husbandry of elephants, using the push-pull approach [142] to manipulate elephant movement.

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