Microbes and hyenas and smells

So when this press release about microbes and hyenas came out: Microbes help hyenas communicate via scent I wanted to write about it.  But I could not figure out what I thought about the story.  Still don’t know what I think but it is interesting and worth sharing.  Also see the original paper:

Kevin R. Theis, Thomas M. Schmidt, Kay E. Holekamp. Evidence for a bacterial mechanism for group-specific social odors among hyenas. Scientific Reports, 2012; 2 DOI: 10.1038/srep00615

For some possible related papers see

• Bats, bacteria, and bat smell: sex-specific diversity of microbes in a sexually selected scent organ
• Problems Caused by Microbes and Treatment Strategies Health and Safety Issues from the Production of Hydrogen Sulphide
• The relationship between oral malodor and volatile sulfur compound–producing bacteria
• Assessing the relationship between concentrations of malodor compounds and odor scores from judges
• Association of odor from infected root canal analyzed by an electronic nose with isolated bacteria

Author: Jonathan Eisen

I am an evolutionary biologist and a Professor at U. C. Davis. (see my lab site here). My research focuses on the origin of novelty (how new processes and functions originate). To study this I focus on sequencing and analyzing genomes of organisms, especially microbes and using phylogenomic analysis View all posts by Jonathan Eisen