Interaction between sensory and postingestional repellents in starlings: methyl anthranilate and sucrose

Ingestion of concentrated sucrose solutions causes sickness in sucrase-deficient birds. As a result, some suggest that sucrose may represent an environmentally safe avian repellent. In the present experiments, we compared the repellency of sucrose to that of methyl anthranilate (MA), a known avian r...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEcological applications Vol. 3; no. 2; p. 262
Main Authors Clark, L. (USDA, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Philadelphia, PA), Mason, J.R
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 01.05.1993
Subjects
AGUA DEL SUELO
AROMATIC COMPOUNDS
BIRD CONTROL
COMPOSE AROMATIQUE
COMPUESTOS AROMATICOS
CONTROL DE PAJAROS
DERIVATIVES
EAU DU SOL
ESTORNINO
ETOURNEAU
FEEDING PREFERENCES
FRUIT TEMPERE
FRUTAS DE CLIMA TEMPLADO
LUTTE ANTIAVIAIRE
PREFERENCE ALIMENTAIRE
PREFERENCIAS ALIMENTARIAS
REPELENTES
REPELLENCY
REPELLENTS
REPULSIF
SACCHAROSE
SOIL WATER
STARLINGS
STURNUS VULGARIS
SUCROSA
SUCROSE
TEMPERATE FRUITS
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Summary:Ingestion of concentrated sucrose solutions causes sickness in sucrase-deficient birds. As a result, some suggest that sucrose may represent an environmentally safe avian repellent. In the present experiments, we compared the repellency of sucrose to that of methyl anthranilate (MA), a known avian repellent. We also tested mixtures of sucrose and MA to investigate whether repellency could be enhanced, relative to sucrose or MA presented alone. The results showed that the MA was strongly avoided in both drinking and feeding trials. Conversely, only high sucrose concentrations were avoided, and only in drinking trials. No combination of MA and sucrose was as effective as MA alone. We conclude that sucrose is not sufficiently aversive to serve as an avian repellent in the field.
Bibliography:9405835
H10
ISSN:1051-0761
1939-5582
DOI:10.2307/1941829