Olfactory recognition of terrestrial shelters in female Northern Spectacled Salamanders Salamandrina perspicillata (Caudata, Salamandridae)

Abstract

Chemical cues are used as ubiquitous markers of individual, group, kinship, and species identity. Northern Spectacled Salamander (Salamandrina perspicillata) is a semi-terrestrial and elusive species. Females can be found in water bodies just in the spawning season but spend most of their life, as well as males do, in terrestrial shelters such as cracks, crevices and under stones to reduce the risks of dehydration. We have investigated whether, in reproductive females, animal's own and conspecific chemical cues play a role in the shelter choice. We performed unforced "two-choice system" tests in order to study the behavioural response of salamanders to scent marks. For each test, the choice between two artificial shelters (plastic tubes) was offered to each focal individual. Data were analyzed using the binomial distribution. Our results show that Salamandrina use the sense of smell in the terrestrial shelter choice as animals (i) were capable to discriminate between a tube previously used by itself and a unused one (P<0.001) and (ii) preferred a tube previously marked by another female in the place of an unused one (P<0.05). However discrimination between individual's own odour and that of a conspecific one was not significant (P>0.05). We suggest that attraction towards conspecific smells could favour a gregarious behaviour in winter refuges.