At our institute, we investigate how different living organisms, especially plants and insects, communicate with each other using chemical signals. Fragrances are often used, which insects perceive via their sense of smell and then interpret. The scent is recognized by special olfactory receptors that react to the individual chemical compounds.
For most of these scents, we humans lack the corresponding receptors so that we cannot smell them at all. In addition, our sense of smell is nowhere near as sensitive as that of moths, for example. And in the case of complicated mixtures of substances, we would not even recognize the individual compounds as such.
In order to observe this type of communication and to be able to measure which volatile substances and how many the plants and animals emit, we use highly sensitive devices specially developed for this purpose. We will demonstrate one of these devices to visitors and explain how it works.
