ARS | Publication request: Evaluation of herbivore-induced plant volatiles for monitoring lacewings in Washington apple orchards

Submitted to: Biological Control
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: October 6, 2010
Publication Date: November 18, 2010
Repository URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10113/48555
Citation: Jones, V.P., Steffan, S.A., Wiman, N.G., Horton, D.R., Miliczky, E., Zhang, Q., Baker, C.C. 2010. Evaluation of herbivore-induced plant volatiles for monitoring lacewings in Washington apple orchards. Biological Control. 56:98-105.

Interpretive Summary: Lacewings are important sources of biological control in orchards, but lack of tools with which to monitor these species has made it difficult to determine absence or presence in orchards. University scientists, industry scientists, and entomologists with USDA-ARS, Yakima Agricultural Research Laboratory, Wapato, WA assayed several volatile chemicals shown in the literature to attract generalist predators to determine whether these products also attracted green lacewings. Several of the chemicals were found to attract lacewings under field conditions. These results provide the initial steps towards eventual development of a new tool for use in monitoring green lacewings under orchard conditions.

Technical Abstract: We evaluated five herbivore-induced plant volatiles plus a male-produced pheromone as attractants for adult lacewings in Washington apple orchards in 2008. We found that several of the attractants or combinations of attractants could be used to monitor three common lacewing species in our trials. Chrysopa nigricornis and Chrysopa oculata were attracted to the combination of methyl salicylate and iridodial with iridodial alone being the second best attractant. Chrysoperla plorabunda was found in lower numbers than C. nigricornis and C. oculata, but did exhibit a significant attraction to benzaldehyde. In mid-summer, we added the herbivore-induced plant volatile squalene to the study and found it to be exceedingly attractive, but only to male C. nigricornis. Whether alone or in combination, squalene attracted 4-5 fold more C. nigricornis than any other compound tested. Our data have revealed C. nigricornis to be an abundant orchard predator that can be readily monitored with squalene-baited traps. Despite the obvious promise of HIPVs in biological control programs, we urge caution in their deployment as large-scale attractants, at least until further studies have investigated potential disruption of natural enemy population dynamics.