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Male behaviors reveal multiple pherotypes within vine mealybug Planococcus ficus (Signoret) (Hemiptera; Pseudococcidae) populations

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Abstract

The vine mealybug (VM) females collected in Israel produce two sex pheromone compounds: lavandulyl senecioate (LS) and (S)-lavandulyl isovalerate (LI). The males display ambiguous behavior to LI: repulsion in the vineyard and attraction of laboratory-reared males. We addressed the question of individual male behavior, i.e., do males respond to both LS and LI, or might they display a distinct response to each of the two pheromone compounds. We compared male pherotype frequencies between wild-caught and laboratory-reared populations. Then, we examined the relationship between pherotype composition and male capture rates in pheromone traps. Finally, we addressed the heredity of the pherotypes. The Israeli VM populations contain nine different male pherotypes, as defined according to the male behavior to pheromone compounds. The studied Portuguese populations included five of the nine pherotypes; none of the Portuguese males were attracted to LI. It seems that the high frequency of males that were attracted to LI is related to dense VM populations. It is hypothesized that selection for the male pherotypes, I males, those that respond to LI, occur under high-density rearing conditions. This may result from shorter development times of males and females that produce more I male pherotypes. The lower relative frequency of trapping of males in LI-baited traps than expected from the percentage determined in a Petri dish arena suggests that males that respond solely to LS (S males) are better fliers. The results also suggest that the pherotype trait is inherited by both sexes of the VM.

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Acknowledgement

We thank Tirtza Zehavi from the extension service of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rakefet Sharon from North R&D for the assistance in locating the study vineyards, and many growers in Israel and Portugal for their valuable cooperation. We thank Fabienne Assael (deceased), Daniela Fefer (Israel), Elsa Borges da Silva and Manuel Cariano (Portugal) for the laboratory and field assistance. We also acknowledge Benjamin Normark and four anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions on previous versions of the manuscript. The research was partly supported by the Israel Science Foundation, as Grant No. 652/05 and Fundação para Ciência e Tecnologia, as Grant PPCDT/AGR/57580/2004.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Entomology, Volcani Center, ARO, Bet Dagan, 50250, Israel

    Hofit Kol-Maimon, Anat Levi-Zada, Ezra Dunkelblum, Alex Protasov, Miriam Eliyaho & Zvi Mendel

  2. Departamento de Protecção de Plantas e de Fitoecologia/Centro de Estudos Florestais, Instituto Superior de Agronomia, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, 1349-017, Lisbon, Portugal

    José Carlos Franco

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  1. Hofit Kol-Maimon
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  2. Anat Levi-Zada
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  3. José Carlos Franco
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  4. Ezra Dunkelblum
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  5. Alex Protasov
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  6. Miriam Eliyaho
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  7. Zvi Mendel
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Correspondence to Zvi Mendel.

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Kol-Maimon, H., Levi-Zada, A., Franco, J.C. et al. Male behaviors reveal multiple pherotypes within vine mealybug Planococcus ficus (Signoret) (Hemiptera; Pseudococcidae) populations. Naturwissenschaften 97, 1047–1057 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-010-0726-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-010-0726-3

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