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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Hilo, Hawaii » Daniel K. Inouye U.S. Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center » Tropical Crop and Commodity Protection Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #293468
Title: Pheromones, male lures and trapping of tephritid fruit flies

Author
item TAN, K - Retired Non ARS Employee
item NISHIDA, R - Kyoto University
item Jang, Eric
item SHELLY, T - Animal And Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS)

Submitted to: Book Chapter
Publication Type: Book / Chapter
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/25/2014
Publication Date: 10/20/2014
Citation: Tan,K.H., Nishida,R., Jang,E.B., Shelly,T. 2014. Pheromones, male lures and trapping of tephritid fruit flies. In: Shelly,T., Epsky,N., Jang,E.B., Reyes-Flores,J. and Vargas,R. Trapping and the Detection, Control, and Regulation of Tephritid Fruit Flies. New York,NY: Springer Publishing. p.15-74.

Interpretive Summary: This is a chapter out of a book entitled Trapping tephritid fruit flies: Lures, area-wide programs and trade implications. The chapters of the book are all related to the use of trapping for detection , delimitation and control of these serious pests of agriculture. This chapter discusses the use of pheromones and parapheromones as key components of the chemical lures used in traps to attract flies to traps in the field. Discussed in this chapter are definitions of what phreromones and parapheromones are, theirs identification and basis for use as attractants in traps and the application of these chemicals in trapping programs for tephritid fruit flies.

Technical Abstract: The dipteran family of Tephritidae consists of many genera, of which several namely, Anastrepha, Bactrocera, Ceratitis, Dacus, Rhagoletis and Toxotrypana possess species of high economic importance as major pests of fruits and vegetables. Hitherto, pheromones isolated and identified for possible use in trapping of conspecific females are confined mainly to the major/serious pest species. For most Tephritid species, sex pheromones are generally released from the male rectal (pheromonal) glands prior to courtship and mating periods via spraying (Kuba and Sokei 1988) or stridulation (Monro 1953) to attract females. There are two types of parapheromones: anthropogenic (e.g., CL, trimedlure, fluorinated ME analogs, raspberry ketone-formate, and plant-borne (e.g., a-copaene, ME, RK, zingerone). Parapheromones, for certain tephritid species, are relatively cheap to synthesize due to the simplicity of the chemical structures often with no stereoisomers. In addition, they are very potent attractants in most cases and thus appear a more robust option for trapping programs than the development of the male sex pheromone as a bait. As a result, they are frequently used, as baits in trapping for a) surveys and detection of foreign immigrants, b) delimitation of an infestation, and c) control or eradication via the male annihilation technique.