Abstract
We report here a first survey of insect orientation to fungal cultures and fungal volatiles from a community ecology perspective. We tested whether volatiles from a ubiquitous yeast-like fungus (Aureobasidium pullulans) are broadly attractive to insects in an agricultural landscape. We evaluated insect attraction to fungal cultures and synthetic compounds identified in fungal headspace (2-methyl-1-butanol, 3-methyl-1-butanol, 2-phenylethanol) in a spearmint (Mentha spicata L.) plantation. Three findings emerged: (1) 1,315 insects representing seven orders and 39 species oriented to traps, but 65 % of trapped insects were Dipterans, of which 80 % were hoverflies (Diptera: Syrphidae); (2) traps baited with A. pullulans caught 481 % more insects than unbaited control traps on average, and contained more diverse (Shannon’s H index) and species rich assemblages than control traps, traps baited with Penicillium expansum, or uninoculated media; and (3) insects oriented in greatest abundance to a 1:1:1 blend of A. pullulans volatiles, but mean diversity scores were highest for traps baited with only 2-phenylethanol or 2-methyl-1-butanol. Our results show that individual components of fungal headspace are not equivalent in terms of the abundance and diversity of insects that orient to them. The low abundance of insects captured with P. expansum suggests that insect assemblages do not haphazardly orient to fungal volatiles. We conclude that volatiles from a common fungal species (A. pullulans) are attractive to a variety of insect taxa in an agricultural system, and that insect orientation to fungal volatiles may be a common ecological phenomenon.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to David Horton and Eugene Miliczky for assistance with insect identification, and we thank Daryl Green and Dong Cha for providing technical support during experiments. Bob Halvorson kindly provided access to his mint fields. Pre-reviews of the manuscript were provided by Nilsa Bosque-Perez, and Sanford Eigenbrode, and we thank the anonymous referees who reviewed this manuscript for their helpful comments and suggestions. All experiments reported herein were performed in compliance with current national laws.
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Davis, T.S., Landolt, P.J. A Survey of Insect Assemblages Responding to Volatiles from a Ubiquitous Fungus in an Agricultural Landscape. J Chem Ecol 39, 860–868 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-013-0278-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-013-0278-z