ArticleRoyal Society open science2016
Alcohol discrimination and preferences in two species of nectar-feeding primate.
Article in Royal Society open science, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 42 citations in OpenAlex.
- Ethanol ingestion via frugivory in wild chimpanzees.Science advances · 2025Article
- Honey bees are resilient to the long-term presence of alcohol in their diet.Ecotoxicology (London, England) · 2025Article
- Occasional and constant exposure to dietary ethanol shortens the lifespan of worker honey bees.Journal of comparative physiology. B, Biochemical, systemic, and environmental physiology · 2024Article
- Seed dispersal syndrome predicts ethanol concentration of fruits in a tropical dry forest.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Diet and the evolution ofRoyal Society open science · 2023Article
- Hummingbird ingestion of low-concentration ethanol within artificial nectar.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
- The Promise of an Evolutionary Perspective of Alcohol Consumption.Neuroscience insights · 2023Review
- Potential effects of nectar microbes on pollinator health.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Review
- Dietary ethanol ingestion by free-ranging spider monkeysRoyal Society open science · 2022Article
- The role of thrifty genes in the origin of alcoholism: A narrative review and hypothesis.Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research · 2021Review
- Human Evolution and Dietary Ethanol.Nutrients · 2021Review
- Discontinued alcohol consumption elicits withdrawal symptoms in honeybees.Biology letters · 2021Article
- Genetic evidence of widespread variation in ethanol metabolism among mammals: revisiting the 'myth' of natural intoxication.Biology letters · 2020Article
- First experimental evidence for olfactory species discrimination in two nocturnal primate species (Microcebus lehilahytsara and M. murinus).Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Physiology, ecology and industrial applications of aroma formation in yeast.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2017Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Recent reports suggest that dietary ethanol, or alcohol, is a supplemental source of calories for some primates. For example, slow lorises (Nycticebus coucang) consume fermented nectars with a mean alcohol concentration of 0.6% (range: 0.0-3.8%). A similar behaviour is hypothesized for aye-ayes (Daubentonia madagascariensis) based on a single point mutation (A294V) in the gene that encodes alcohol dehydrogenase class IV (ADH4), the first enzyme to catabolize alcohol during digestion. The mutation increases catalytic efficiency 40-fold and may confer a selective advantage to aye-ayes that consume the nectar of Ravenala madagascariensis. It is uncertain, however, whether alcohol exists in this nectar or whether alcohol is preferred or merely tolerated by nectarivorous primates. Here, we report the results of a multiple-choice food preference experiment with two aye-ayes and a slow loris. We conducted observer-blind trials with randomized, serial dilutions of ethanol (0-5%) in a standard array of nectar-simulating sucrose solutions. We found that both species can discriminate varying concentrations of alcohol; and further, that both species prefer the highest available concentrations. These results bolster the hypothesized adaptive function of the A294V mutation in ADH4, and a connection with fermented foods, both in aye-ayes and the last common ancestor of African apes and humans.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.