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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Tifton, Georgia » Crop Protection and Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #114773
Title: PARASITIC WASPS LEARN AND REPORT DIVERSE CHEMICALS WITH UNIQUE CONDITIONABLE BEHAVIORS

Author
item Olson, Dawn
item RAINS, GLEN - UNIV. OF GEORGIA
item MEINERS, T - FREIE UNIV/GERMANY
item TAKASU, K - KYUSHU UNIV/JAPAN
item TUMLINSON, J - UNIV. OF FLORIDA
item WACKERS, F - THE NETHERLANDS
item Lewis, Wallace

Submitted to: Chemical Senses
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/7/2003
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: The need for chemical detectors that are more sensitive, programmable, and portable than those currently used has created a renewed interest in examining the potential of biological sensors. Herein we report that parasitic wasps, Microplitis croceipes, are able to learn, by linking odors to food or hosts, very diverse chemicals such as constituents of explosives and neurotoxins, and they express very distinct behaviors thereby reporting the presence of these chemicals. This flexibility of parasitoids to link diverse chemicals to resource needs and subsequently report them with recognizable behaviors provides new revelation of their foraging adaptability and opens prospects for their use as biological detectors.

Technical Abstract: There is a growing need for more sensitive, programmable, portable and cryptic chemical detectors, and The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has recently made large investments into the investigation of natural organisms as model detectors. Herein, we investigated the use of the parasitic wasp, Microplitis croceipes (Cresson) (Hymenoptera: Braconidiae) as biological detectors because of their known ability to use chemicals to forage more effectively. We found that these wasps readily learn to associate, with either sucrose and water as food or Heliocoverpa zea (Boddie) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) larval frass, as host rewards, very diverse chemicals that are likely outside their natural foraging history. In addition, they display very distinct behaviors, such as seeking and coiling in the presence of these chemicals depending on expectations gained from prior training (food or host, respectively). This flexibility of parasitoids to link diverse chemicals to resource needs and to report them with specific and highly recognizable behaviors provides new revelation of their foraging adaptability and opens prospects for their use as biological detectors.