Does the contact sex pheromone of Japanese pine sawyer, Monochamus alternatus, exist?
Author of the article:FAN Jian-Ting1,2;WEI Wei\1;SUN Jiang-Hua1
Author's Workplace:1. State Key Laboratory of Integrated Management of Pest Insects and Rodents, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080, China; 2. Graduation School, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100039, China
Key Words:Monochamus alternatus; contact sex pheromone; extract mating behavior
Abstract:
A series of experiments with different body parts of females Monochamus
alternatus Hope separately dissected showed that after head, elytra
and prothorax of females were separately dissected , or
replacing the abdomen of females with that of males , females
still elicited the mating behavior of males.This
implied that if contact sex pheromone exists, it
should be accumulated on the second half part of body of female M.alternatus , especially thorax .However , dead females killed by freezing did not
elicited the response of males, and when
both live and dead females killed by freezing were offered to males, all
males preferred live females, further
evidence suggests that contact sex pheromone does not exist in M.alternatus , and visual cues may play an important role
in the mating behavior of M.alternatus since the movement of female beetle attracts male .When
antennae of males were dissected at No .5-6
segment and No .1 segment of antennae , males
still succeeded in finding females to finish the mating behaviors .This
suggests that either contact sex pheromone does not exist ormales perceive
pheromone on the receptors of maxillary and labial palps.Dead
females from extraction with hexame did not also elicit the response of males. When
the whole body was extracted with hexane or ether , both
extracts dripped on dead females due to extract, glass
sticks and cobblestones did not elicit the response of males.Further
evidence showed that the contact sex pheromone maybe does not exist in the body
of M.alternatus.Mature
females and males aggregate on host stem by perceiving the host volatiles .In
the small environment of host stem , visual
cues may play an important role in the following mating behavior of M. alternatus.