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MBE Advance Access originally published online on February 12, 2004
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Mol. Biol. Evol. 21(4):697-704. 2004
DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msh068
© 2004 by the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. ISSN: 0737-4038

Genetic Evidence for the Coexistence of Pheromone Perception and Full Trichromatic Vision in Howler Monkeys

David M. Webb*, Liliana Cortés-Ortiz{dagger} and Jianzhi Zhang*

* Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan
{dagger} Instituto de Neuroetologia and Centro de Investigaciones Tropicales, Universidad Veracruzana, Veracruz, México

E-mail: jianzhi{at}umich.edu.

Vertebrate pheromones are water-soluble chemicals perceived mainly by the vomeronasal organ (VNO) for intraspecific communications. Humans, apes, and Old World (OW) monkeys lack functional genes responsible for the pheromone signal transduction and are generally insensitive to vomeronasal pheromones. It has been hypothesized that the evolutionary deterioration of pheromone sensitivity occurred because pheromone communication became redundant after the emergence of full trichromatic color vision via the duplication of the X-chromosome–linked red/green opsin gene in the common ancestor of hominoids and OW monkeys. Interestingly, full trichromacy also evolved in the New World (NW) howler monkeys via an independent duplication of the same gene. Here we sequenced from three species of howler monkeys an essential component of the VNO pheromone transduction pathway, the gene encoding the ion channel TRP2. In contrast to those of hominoids and OW monkeys, the howler TRP2 sequences have none of the characteristics of pseudogenes. This and other observations indicate that howler monkeys have maintained both their systems of pheromone communication and full trichromatic vision, suggesting that the presence of full trichromacy alone does not lead to the loss of pheromone communication. We suggest that the ecological differences between OW and NW primates, particularly in habitat selection, may have also affected the evolution of pheromone perception.

Key Words: TRP2 • howler monkey • primate • pheromone • color vision


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