Recently, scientists have used molecular phylogenomic techniques to map the fate of species-specific gene duplication in 94 diverse mammalian taxa, in order to identify the OR gene families driving adaptation to various ecological niches. More than 70,000 OR gene sequences extracted from the entire genome were used for this analysis. Results suggest that the presence of a functional vomeronasal organ is connected with statistically significant patterns of OR speciesspecific gene duplications for the first time.

It was discovered that a novel association exists between the dietary niche of herbivory and a significant number of duplications in OR family 5/8/9. These findings also point to distinctions between sociable and solitary niches, suggesting that living alone may lead to a higher OR repertoire expansion. An essential way for new, diverse genotypes and phenotypes to emerge is through mechanisms like tandem gene duplication, segmental duplication, or whole-genome duplication

African elephants may use olfaction to discriminate between members of their family, while Asian elephants can distinguish between enantiomer odorant pairs, making the elephant the mammal with the broadest range of ORs.