Individual odours and mate recognition in the prairie vole,Microtus ochrogaster

A habituation-discrimination technique was used to demonstrate that male and female prairie voles can discriminate individual differences in the odours of soiled shavings and urine from male and female conspecifics. A second experiment, employing a Y-maze, showed that females significantly preferred the odours of their mate over those of either another mated male or an unmated male. Males preferred their mate's odours to those of other mated females but showed no significant preference between the odours of their mate and those of a virgin female. A third experiment demonstrated that, over a 10-h period, females built nests and/or stayed preferentially on the side of a Y-maze containing their mate's odours. Likewise, males preferentially built nests in their mate's side compared to the side containing odours from a virgin female. However, although the same trend was present when mate odours were paired with odours from another mated female, the preference was not statistically significant. Taken as a whole, these results indicate that mate recognition may be an important of individually distinctive odours in this species.