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Abstract:
Schubert et al. (2021) review the evidence from 577 publications about how the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC), might mediate social odor via the microbiota community to “stimulate advances in our knowledge of this key pathway for social communication.” The idea is that, as part of the immune system of all vertebrates, polymorphic MHC molecules control microorganisms present in the microbiome, which produce odor that may serve as a social signal. MHC, microbe, odor signal is the sequence of steps leading eventually from MHC to social signal, for example, for MHC-dependent mate choice. However, none of the 577 studies showed the odor to be a social signal.