Analysis of floral scent in real time using an electronic noserapid GC.Flowering plants communicate with their animal pollinators through a combination of olfactory olfactory /ol·fac·to·ry/ (ol-fak´ter-e) pertaining to the sense of smell. ol·fac·to·ry adj. Of, relating to, or contributing to the sense of smell. , visual and gustatory gus·ta·to·ry or gus·ta·tive adj. Of or relating to the sense of taste. signals. However, the evolution of odors as components of floral signals is poorly understood, due to the technological difficulty and expense of sampling odors on the scale of hundreds of plants. A novel analytical device, the zNose, combines rapid gas chromatography (GC) runs lasting less than one minute with a highly sensitive surface acoustic wave A surface acoustic wave (SAW) is an acoustic wave traveling along the surface of a material having some elasticity, with an amplitude that typically decays exponentially with the depth of the substrate. (SAW) detector. This portable device makes it possible to analyze hundreds of individuals in a plant population, or a greenhouse full of mutants, in a short amount of time, while avoiding the many hazards of conventional odor analysis. We used the zNose to characterize the odor of several spring-blooming plants, and demonstrate its sensitivity to temporal changes in odor emission and ratios between scent constituents. This project was supported by SCAMP and NSF NSF - National Science Foundation grants DEB-0317217 and IBN-0444163. |
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