1. Chemical sensing in vertebrates is crucial in their lives, and efforts are undertaken towards deciphering their chemical language. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are a group of chemicals believed to play an essential role in a wide variety of animal interactions. Therefore, understanding what animals sense themselves and untangling the ecological role of their volatile cues can be accomplished by analysing VOC emissions. A proton‐transfer‐reaction time‐of‐flight mass spectrometer (PTR‐TOF‐MS) is an instrument that measures VOCs in real‐time in an air sample. Since this technique acts as a hyper‐sensitive ‘nose’ it has a similar potential in deciphering the chemical language of vertebrates.
2. Here, we validate the use of PTR‐TOF‐MS as a tool to measure VOCs from vertebrates, which in turn will help resolve vertebrate interactions through VOCs. The instrument monitors and records the full spectrum of VOCs emitted by an individual with a high accuracy and low detection limit, including transient VOC emissions. We propose and test diverse measuring configurations that allow for measurement of VOC emissions from different vertebrates and their exudates: full body, specific parts of the body, urine and femoral pores. In addition, we test configurations for sudden and short‐lasting processes as VOCs emitted during adder skin shedding as well as the emissions of skin secretions upon mechanical and physiological stimulation in amphibia. Our configurations work in tandem with gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC‐MS) to allow compound structure verification.
3. We discuss the configurations and methodologies used and conclude with recommendations for further studies, such as the choice of chamber size and flow. We also report the results of the measurements on vertebrates—that are novel to science—and discuss their ecological meaning.
4. We argue that PTR‐TOF‐MS has a high potential to resolve important unanswered questions in vertebrate chemical ecology with great adaptability to a wide range of experimental set‐ups. If combined with a structure verification tool, such as GC‐MS, the creative deployment of PTR‐TOF‐MS in various future study designs will lead to the identification of ecologically relevant VOCs.

中文翻译：

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质子转移反应飞行时间质谱（PTR-TOF-MS）作为研究动物挥发性有机化合物（VOC）排放的工具

1. 脊椎动物中的化学感应对它们的生活至关重要，因此正在努力解读其化学语言。挥发性有机化合物（VOC）是一类化学物质，据信在多种动物相互作用中起着至关重要的作用。因此，了解动物的自我感觉并弄清其挥发性线索的生态作用可以通过分析VOC排放量来完成。质子转移反应飞行时间质谱仪（PTR-TOF-MS）是一种可实时测量空气样品中VOC的仪器。由于这项技术是一种超敏感的“鼻子”，因此在解读脊椎动物的化学语言方面具有类似的潜力。
2. 在这里，我们验证了PTR-TOF-MS作为测量脊椎动物VOC的工具的使用，这反过来将有助于通过VOC解决脊椎动物的相互作用。该仪器以高准确度和低检测极限监测并记录个人排放的全挥发性有机化合物，包括瞬态挥发性有机化合物排放。我们提出并测试了多种测量配置，这些测量配置可测量来自不同脊椎动物及其渗出物的VOC排放：全身，身体的特定部位，尿液和股骨孔。此外，我们还测试了突然和持续时间较短的过程的配置，如在加法器皮肤脱落过程中释放的VOC以及两栖动物受到机械和生理刺激后皮肤分泌物的释放。
3. 我们讨论了所使用的配置和方法，并提出了进一步研究的建议，例如腔室尺寸和流量的选择。我们还报告了对脊椎动物的测量结果（对科学而言是新颖的），并讨论了其生态意义。
4. 我们认为，PTR-TOF-MS具有很大的潜力，可以解决脊椎动物化学生态学中的重要未解决问题，并且对各种实验设置都具有很好的适应性。如果与诸如GC-MS的结构验证工具结合使用，PTR-TOF-MS在未来各种研究设计中的创造性部署将导致对生态上相关的VOC的识别。