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Pea plant volatiles guide host location behaviour in the pea moth

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Abstract

Identification of plant volatiles that attract mated insect females for oviposition can provide important information about plant–insect relationships that can be used to develop pest control strategies involving manipulation of the female host search. Our study represents a first step towards identifying volatiles that affect the host location behaviour of the pea moth Cydia nigricana. The behaviours of virgin and mated males and females were analysed in cage experiments testing a two-choice situation at close range and in wind tunnel experiments evaluating upwind orientation over a distance. In both experimental setups, flowering pea plants constituted the most attractive phenological stage for mated females, with 58 % landing on such plants in the wind tunnel. Testing headspace extracts of different phenological stages of pea and of detached pea buds and flowers in the wind tunnel, mated females showed the highest landing responses to volatiles during flower development (budding 42 % and flowering 56 %) and from detached buds (46 %) and flowers (66 %). Volatile compounds collected from the various phenological stages of pea were analysed by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry, and the antennal responses to these headspace collections were evaluated by gas chromatography–electroantennography. Ten antennally active compounds were identified, nine of which were present in the headspace extracts of the whole pea plants at all tested phenological stages and in detached buds and flowers. Overall, our results demonstrate a clear link between host plant phenology, the corresponding plant odour, and the behaviour of mated C. nigricana females.

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Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to Rainer Wedemeyer and his team for the collection and supply of pea moth material, Yngve H. Stenstrøm for providing synthetic standards, Yoshiko Shibata-Teufert and Karlheinz Teufert for translation of Japanese literature, Torfinn Torp for statistical advice and Anders Aak for fruitful discussions and valuable comments on the manuscript. We also thank Peter Witzgall for his interest in the project. This study was funded by DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, TH 1453/2-1), Bioforsk—the Norwegian Institute for Agricultural and Environmental Research and ZFF (Zentrale Forschungsförderung) of University of Kassel.

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  1. Division of Plant Health and Plant Protection, Bioforsk, Norwegian Institute for Agricultural and Environmental Research, Høgskoleveien 7, 1430, Ås, Norway

    Gunda Thöming, Hans Ragnar Norli & Geir K. Knudsen

  2. Department of Ecological Plant Protection, Faculty of Organic Agricultural Sciences, University of Kassel, Nordbahnhofstrasse 1a, 37213, Witzenhausen, Germany

    Helmut Saucke

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  1. Gunda Thöming
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  2. Hans Ragnar Norli
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  4. Geir K. Knudsen
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Correspondence to Gunda Thöming.

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Communicated by Handling Editor: Anna-Karin Borg-Karlson.

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Thöming, G., Norli, H.R., Saucke, H. et al. Pea plant volatiles guide host location behaviour in the pea moth. Arthropod-Plant Interactions 8, 109–122 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11829-014-9292-5

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