Abstract
Insect cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) play important roles in chemical communication, as well as having ecological and physiological roles. The use of CHCs for mate recognition has been shown in many insect genera, but little is known about their use in the tea weevil Myllocerinus aurolineatus. Here, we provide evidence that CHCs on the surface of sexually mature M. aurolineatus females act as contact sex pheromones, facilitating mate recognition and eliciting copulatory behavior in male weevils. Using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, we identify n-pentacosane and n-heptacosane as two potential contact pheromone components. Results from arena bioassays showed that n-pentacosane is a component of a contact pheromone of M. aurolineatus. Further results from the Y-tube olfactometer bioassays showed that n-pentacosane also acts as a volatile attractant. Our results greatly improve our understanding of the chemical ecology of M. aurolineatus.
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Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge Dr. Jon Sweeney for providing comments on the manuscript and Emily Wheeler for editorial assistance. The study was sponsored by the Special Fund for Agro-scientific Research in the Public Interest (201403030), National Natural Science Foundation of China (31471784), the Division of Science and Technology of Zhejiang Province (2015C32081), and Central Public-interest Scientific Institution Basal Research Fund (1610212017017).
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X.S. designed the research. X.Z, G.W., X.L., F.L., X. S., Z.X. and J.Z., performed the experiment. X.Z, G.W., X.L., F.L., X. S., Z.X. and J.Z. analyzed the data. X.S. prepared and wrote the paper. All authors are included in the author list; its order has been agreed to by all authors. All authors reviewed the manuscript.
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Sun, X., Zhang, X., Wu, G. et al. n-Pentacosane Acts as both Contact and Volatile Pheromone in the tea Weevil, Myllocerinus aurolineatus . J Chem Ecol 43, 557–562 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-017-0857-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-017-0857-5