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Reproductive Isolation of Ips nitidus and I. shangrila in Mountain Forests of Western China: Responses to Chiral and Achiral Candidate Pheromone Components

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Abstract

Eastern Palearctic conifers are subject to frequent bark beetle outbreaks. However, neither the species responsible nor the semiochemicals guiding these attacks are well understood. Two high-mountain Ips species on Qinghai spruce, Picea crassifolia, I. shangrila and I. nitidus, are typical in this regard. Six synthetic candidate pheromone components that we earlier identified from hindguts of unmated males of these two Ips species were tested for field activity in Qinghai province, P. R. China. For I. nitidus, racemic ipsdienol ((±)-Id) could replace the naturally-produced blend of enantiomers containing 74 % (–)-(S)-Id (74:26 S:R), in attractive ternary or binary blends. In contrast, sympatric I. shangrila were attracted mainly to blends including Id of opposite chirality, 97 %-(+)-(R)-Id. Of the verbenols, (–)-trans-verbenol was inactive for I. nitidus or inhibitory for I. shangrila, but (–)-cis-verbenol (cV) was a key component of the pheromone in both species. Two fully factorial experiments demonstrated that (±)-Id, cV, and 2-methyl-3-buten-2-ol (MB) are components of the aggregation pheromone of I. nitidus, whereas only (+)-Id and cV are essential components of the aggregation pheromone of I. shangrila. While MB is not necessary for attraction of I. shangrila, it is an active antagonist and likely functions in species isolation. A review of the pheromone production and responses in Palearctic Ips and Pseudoips showed that cV is more common than methylbutenols, and both elicit qualitatively variable responses. Ipsdienol is the most common component with variable chirality, and is a necessary, but often not sufficient, factor for determining pheromone specificity.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank the staff of the Maixiu Mountain Forest Park of Qinghai Province for cooperation in data collection. We thank Drs Y. Wang and J. R. Aldrich, at SLU and USDA, respectively, for constructive comments on an earlier draft. The study was funded by the APVV project “Study of semiochemicals-based technology to control aggressive spruce bark beetles in province Qinghai, China” (SK-CN-0025-09) and project VEGA (2/0194/12) “Interactions between forest trees and bark beetles (Col. Scolytinae)”.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Chemical Ecology, Department of Plant Protection Biology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, SE-230 53, Alnarp, Sweden

      Fredrik Schlyter

    2. Institute of Forest Ecology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Štúrova 2, 960 53, Zvolen, Slovakia

      Rastislav Jakuš & Pavel Mezei

    3. Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences, Kamýcká 129, 165 21, Praha 6 – Suchdol, Czech Republic

      Rastislav Jakuš & Blanka Kalinová

    4. Maixiu Forest Park of Qinghai Province, Huangnan, 811300, People’s Republic of China

      Fu-Zhong Han

    5. Qinghai Provincial Centre of Wetland Protection and Management, Xining, 810000, People’s Republic of China

      Jian-Hai Ma

    6. Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Flemingovo nam. 2, Prague, Czech Republic

      Blanka Kalinová

    7. State Key Laboratory of Integrated Management of Pest Insect & Rodents, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, DaTun Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100101, People’s Republic of China

      Jiang-Hua Sun

    8. Fytofarm Ltd, Dúbravská cesta 21, 845 08, Bratislava 45, Slovak Republic

      Liana Ujhelyiová

    9. Sterling International, Inc., 3808 N. Sullivan Rd, Bldg 16, Spokane, WA, 99216, USA

      Qing-He Zhang

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    Correspondence to Fredrik Schlyter.

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    Fredrik Schlyter and Rastislav Jakuš contributed equally to this work.

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    Schlyter, F., Jakuš, R., Han, FZ. et al. Reproductive Isolation of Ips nitidus and I. shangrila in Mountain Forests of Western China: Responses to Chiral and Achiral Candidate Pheromone Components. J Chem Ecol 41, 678–688 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-015-0594-6

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