Overview on stored-product insect pheromones and food attractants.

Abstract

The direction of recent research into the use of pheromones and food at tractants for detection, monitoring and control of stored-product insects is considered. The value of the moth pheromones has been clearly demonstrated both within premises and outdoors. Further work on the composition of pheromones produced by moths and on trap design may be desirable. Recent progress with the beetle sex pheromones includes the design of a new Khapra beetle trap and further studies on the stereochemical complexity and inhibitory isomers of anobiid pheromones. Promising advances are also being reported with the beetle aggregation pheromones with new trap designs, newly identified components and synthetic material free from inhibitory isomers. Further study is needed to elucidate how species specificity is maintained between species whose pheromones are closely related chemically, and to investigate the synergistic interaction with food attractants. The potential of food attractants alone as non-specific lures is exemplified by work with extracts of crushed carob pods. There is a growing number of examples of the successful use of these attractants but many aspects of their effects on insects are not yet fully understood. Full exploitation of the potential of attractants for stored-product insects still needs further research in virtually every area of the subject from initial characterisation to the development of a suitably simple combination of trap and lure for practical use. Given a thorough knowledge of both trap design and the variables which affect trap catch, there may still be scope for improving trap effectiveness. For example, laboratory tests have shown that modern traps in cereal bulks may catch only a small percentage of the insects present (Cogan and Wakefield, 1987; White and Loschiavo, 1986). Significant improvements have sometimes been achieved by the use of pheromones and food attractants, which can bring advantages in any of three ways. Firstly, detection can be improved by enabling infestations to be found earlier and their extent to be defined more accurately, giving staff more time to choose and implement appropriate control measures and thus minimise pest damage. Secondly, there can be an improvement in the precision of moni toring population levels. Lastly, the use of attractants can allow the development of alternative control methods such as mass trapping. Provided the improvement outweighs the cost of obtaining it, the use of attractants should be encouraged. An incidental but important result of this work is to provide a better understanding of pest behaviour. This paper provides an overview of the subject, outlines the direction of recent research and suggests areas needing further research. It is not intended to be a comprehensive review since further information is already available. Burkholder and Ma (1985) review the use of pheromones for monitoring and control, Sinclair and Howitt (1984) discuss comparative trials and commercially available traps and pheromone lures in Australia, and Campion et al. (1987) describe various studies on the use of pheromones in developing countries. Reviews covering both pheromones and food attractants have been written by Pinniger and Chambers (1987), Chambers (1987), and Cogan and Chambers (1989). Accepted for publication 15 July 1990. This content downloaded from 207.46.13.132 on Tue, 05 Jul 2016 06:25:35 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms VOLUME 63, NUMBER 4 491