title: The pheromone frontalin and its dual function in the invasive bark beetle Dendroctonus valens.
abstract: The red turpentine beetle, Dendroctonus valens LeConte, is one of the most destructive invasive forest pests in China, having killed more than 6 million pines since its first outbreak in 1999. Little is known about D. valens pheromone biology and no aggregation pheromone has yet been identified. Analysis by gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer of volatiles collected from live beetles in China showed that female beetles produce frontalin and males do not. Olfactory assays in the laboratory showed that males were attracted to frontalin at a wide range of concentrations, whereas females were attracted to it at a narrow range of concentrations. In field trials, 3-carene, a monoterpene kairomone from a pine tree selected to host the beetles attracted both sexes, and when frontalin was added, the total number of beetles captured increased by almost 200%. However, increasing concentrations of frontalin significantly decreased the percentage of female beetles trapped. These results suggest a new role of frontalin as an aggregation pheromone in addition to a female-produced sex pheromone, which was previously shown in a North American population. The dual functions of the pheromone frontalin produced by D. valens females, as well as its ecological significance for overcoming host resistance, are discussed.
authors: State Key Laboratory of Integrated Management of Pest Insects and Rodents, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beichen West Road 1-5, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, China. liuzd@ioz.ac.cn
authors: Zhudong
authors: Z
authors: Liu
authors: Bingbing
authors: B
authors: Xu
authors: Zhenwang
authors: Z
authors: Miao
authors: Jianghua
authors: J
authors: Sun
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D019086:Bridged Bicyclo Compounds, Heterocyclic / Q000032:analysis / Q000378:metabolism*; D001517:Coleoptera / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D008297:Male
chemical_list: D019086:Bridged Bicyclo Compounds, Heterocyclic; C012327:frontalin
keywords: aggregation pheromone; bark beetle Dendroctonus valens; dual function; ecological adaptation; frontalin; gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS); olfactory assay; sex pheromone