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Acree, T.E. and Bloss, J.M.

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Flavor Chemistry and Human Chemical Ecology,

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The purpose of this paper is to examine flavor as human chemical ecology. As defined by CIRCE, "Chemical ecology deals with the chemical interactions of organisms, interactions that are pervasive at all levels of biological organization, from microbes to humans, and operate in the most diverse biological contexts. Organisms find food and seek out mates on the basis of chemicals, ..."(1) Understanding flavor as a process identical in nature but different in detail from the chemical ecology of all biology may help illuminate the physiology of olfaction, its evolution, and its psychological and social function. There are many instances of the same chemicals mediating the behavior of different species. For example, three hundred years ago the aroma of many North American grape species, Vitis labruscana, V. rotundifolia, etc. were described as having a characteristic Foxy aroma (2). The notion that the cause of the Foxy smell was o-aminoacetophenone or the similar compound methyl anthranilate seems reasonable when it is realized that o-aminoacetophenone is a major constituent in sent marking glands of several mustalides to which foxes are closely related. Thus, the earliest European settlers described their introduction to a novel sensory experience, Fox grapes, with a descriptor that accurately identified a stimulant important to the chemical ecology of a canine predator they had experienced in Europe. In another example, Nishida observed that the chirality of a component in the male pheromone system of the oriental fruit moth Grapholitia molesta was exactly the same chirality as the only isomer of methyl jasmonate with odor for humans and that it is only this isomer that is produced by lemons as they age(3). This paper will present examples from the literature of the dominant flavor chemicals found in natural products and their detection in the chemical ecology of other species.

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