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Females of the Bumblebee Parasite, Aphomia sociella, Excite Males Using a Courtship Pheromone

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Abstract

Aphomia sociella (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae: Galleriinae) is a parasitic moth of bumblebees. Behavioral experiments show that A. sociella females emit semiochemicals that influence male pre-mating behavior and serve as a courtship pheromone. GC/EAD and two-dimensional GC/MS (GCxGC-TOFMS) analyses of extracts of females revealed three antennally active compounds. Comparative GC and GCxGC-TOFMS analyses of extracts and synthetic standards confirmed the identity of the antennally active compounds as hexan-1-ol (1), 6,10,14-trimethylpentadecan-2-one (2), and 6,10,14-trimethylpentadecan-2-ol (3). In laboratory bioassays, alcohol 3 and, at higher doses, ketone 2 initiated male courtship behavior associated with ultrasonic production. Hexan-1-ol (1) and ketone 2 enhanced the activity of alcohol 3. These data suggest that hexan-1-ol, 6,10,14-trimethylpentadecan-2-ol, and 6,10,14-trimethylpentadecan-2-one constitute the female-produced courtship pheromone of A. sociella.

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Acknowledgements

The project was supported by research project #Z4-055-905 (Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic) and by grant #2B06007 (The Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports of the Czech Republic). We thank Jarmila Titzenthalerova for skillful assistance with the GC-EAD experiments and Marketa Foley for language editing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Flemingovo nám. 2, 166 10, Prague, Czech Republic

    Jiří Kindl, Pavel Jiroš, Blanka Kalinová, Petr Žáček & Irena Valterová

  2. Czech University of Life Sciences, Kamýcká 129, 165 21, Prague, Czech Republic

    Blanka Kalinová

  3. Department of Analytical Chemistry, Charles University, Albertov 6, 128 43, Prague, Czech Republic

    Petr Žáček

Authors
  1. Jiří Kindl
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  2. Pavel Jiroš
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  3. Blanka Kalinová
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  4. Petr Žáček
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  5. Irena Valterová
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Irena Valterová.

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Jiří Kindl and Pavel Jiroš contributed equally to this work.

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Fig. S1

Mass spectra of TMPD-one (2) and TMPD-ol (3). (PDF 113 kb)

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Kindl, J., Jiroš, P., Kalinová, B. et al. Females of the Bumblebee Parasite, Aphomia sociella, Excite Males Using a Courtship Pheromone. J Chem Ecol 38, 400–407 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-012-0100-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-012-0100-3

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