What is it about?
This paper reports that a mealybug sex pheromone acts as an across species attractant to a tiny wasp, a natural enemy of the mealybug. By eavesdropping on the female mealybug sex pheromone, the wasp can find its prey.
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Why is it important?
This is important because it provided a tool for researchers to investigate the establishment and spread of the natural enemy, as well as illustrating new applications for this technology in biological control. The scarcity/absence of the mealybug and parasitoids from other habitats such as vineyards was useful to confirm predictions on biological safety.
Perspectives
Uses of pheromones and kairomones are not very widespread in biological control, but this paper is useful because it illustrates how this technology coming from chemical ecology can help another part of the field.
Professor David Maxwell Suckling
University of Auckland
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Evaluation of the synthetic sex pheromone of the obscure mealybug,Pseudococcus viburni, as an attractant to conspecific males, and to females of the parasitoidAcerophagus maculipennis, Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata, October 2015, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/eea.12355.
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