Project AROMA

Anthropogenic Recipes: Olfactory-Mediated Acceptance

Urbanization has introduced anthropogenic ultra-processed foods as dietary resources for urban squirrels, yet how they use olfaction to evaluate the edibility of these evolutionarily novel foods remains largely unknown. Which odorants drive food preference? How are these odorants encoded by olfactory receptors, and how does the coding scheme influence the decision to accept or reject food? Project AROMA seeks to uncover the olfactory mechanisms underlying anthropogenic food recognition. Our study will deepen understanding of wildlife foraging behavior in increasingly urbanized environments.