General principles of attraction and competitive attraction as revealed by large-cage studies of moths responding to sex pheromone.

ABSTRACT: Knowledge of how insects are actually affected by sex pheromones deployed throughout a crop so as to disrupt mating has lacked a mechanistic framework sufficient for guiding optimization of this environmentally friendly pest-control tactic. Major hypotheses are competitive attraction, desensitization, and camouflage. Working with codling moths, Cydia pomonella, in field cages millions of times larger than laboratory test tubes and at substrate concentrations trillions of times less than those typical for enzymes, we nevertheless demonstrate that mating disruption sufficiently parallels enzyme (ligand) -substrate interactions so as to justify adoption of conceptual and analytical tools of biochemical kinetics. By doing so, we prove that commercial dispensers of codling moth pheromone first

SUBMITTER: Miller JR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2806766 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature