Their brains have evolved to discriminate subtle changes in odor mixtures and find meaningful variations in complex spatio-temporal patterns.
These hypothetical unconscious cues could be physiological (e.g. body odor, subtle changes in skin tone) or behavioral.
Yet, failing to discriminate subtle differences amongst odors would be a handicap if such differences were relevant to the outcomes associated with odors [5] [8].
We're talking about a more subtle change in body odor.
Are these subtle phenotypes truly due to odor receptor mutants or other causes?
In situations where variability in odors was inconsequential, honeybees would be able to rapidly exploit all floral sources available, yet bees would still be able to perform subtle discriminations in situations when inter-odor differences signal significant differences in the quality of food rewards.
Girls, only slightly older than I was, who sang in the choir or taught Sunday school, the children of holy parents, underwent, before my eyes, their incredible metamorphosis, of which the most bewildering aspect was not their budding breasts or their rounding behinds but something deeper and more subtle, in their eyes, their heat, their odor, and the inflection of their voices.
However, the genome-wide factors that contribute to subtle individual variations in perception and evaluation of odors in humans or model organisms remain to be elucidated.
This point dovetails with Latour's (2004) conceptualization of having a body as learning to be affected, which is exemplified through the perfume industry's use of odor kits to train apprentices in differentiating subtle fragrances.
Since this dilemma is faced by all animals that use odors as signals, we might reasonably expect a mechanism that supports the ideal strategy (i.e. the ability to ignore trivial, naturally-occurring odor fluctuations whilst retaining the capacity to discriminate subtle inter-odor differences) to be both simple and general.
