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Screening and field evaluation of synthetic volatile blends attractive to adults of the tea weevil, Myllocerinus aurolineatus

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Abstract

Plant volatiles are known to play a role in host location in many herbivorous insects. Although a few studies have determined the role of specific chemicals from herbivore-induced plant volatiles (HIPVs) in mediating interactions between conspecifics in insects belonging to Curculionidae, little is known about how this process works when different components are used. By measuring the behavioral responses of the tea weevil, Myllocerinus aurolineatus (Voss) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), to a series of chemicals in a Y-tube olfactometer, we found that a blend containing (E/Z)-β-ocimene and (Z)-3-hexenyl acetate was attractive to male M. aurolineatus adults, and a blend containing 2-phenylethanol and (Z)-3-hexenyl acetate was attractive to female M. aurolineatus adults; both blends were as attractive to the insects as the volatiles emitted by the tea plants infested with adult weevils. A net cage experiment in the laboratory showed that traps baited with (E/Z)-β-ocimene plus (Z)-3-hexenyl acetate attracted the male herbivores, whereas the traps baited with 2-phenylethanol and (Z)-3-hexenyl acetate did not. Field experiments verified that tea plants exposed to a blend of (E/Z)-β-ocimene plus (Z)-3-hexenyl acetate attracted significantly more weevils than did the control plants or sticky traps baited with the above lure. These results suggest that the blend of (E/Z)-β-ocimene and (Z)-3-hexenyl acetate is an important signal which the tea weevil uses to locate its host, and is a strong candidate for an attractant that could be used to control the weevil.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Emily Wheeler for editorial assistance. We thank Liqun Chen and Biao Gao, who came from Jilin Agricultural University and Yangtze University as summer students to our group, for collecting and rearing weevils. We thank Zongxiu Luo, who drew the draft of trap. The study was sponsored by National Program on Key Basic Research Project (973 Program) (2012CB114104), National Natural Science Foundation of China (31171862), the Division of Science and Technology of Zhejiang Province (2011C22043), and the Planning Subject of ‘the Twelfth Five-Year-Plan’ in National Science and Technology (2011BAD01B02-5).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tea Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hangzhou, 310008, China

    Xiao-Ling Sun, Yu Gao & Zong-Mao Chen

  2. Henan Institute of Science and Technology, Xinxiang, 453000, China

    Guo-Chang Wang

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  1. Xiao-Ling Sun
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  2. Guo-Chang Wang
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  3. Yu Gao
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  4. Zong-Mao Chen
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Correspondence to Xiao-Ling Sun.

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Sun, XL., Wang, GC., Gao, Y. et al. Screening and field evaluation of synthetic volatile blends attractive to adults of the tea weevil, Myllocerinus aurolineatus . Chemoecology 22, 229–237 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00049-012-0110-1

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