Kartika Titik, Shimizu Nobuhiro, Yoshimura Tsuyoshi
Research Centre for Biomaterials, Indonesian Institute of Sciences, West Java, Indonesia.
Faculty of Bioenvironmental Science, Kyoto Gakuen University, Kameoka, Japan.
PLoS One. 2015 Nov 6;10(11):e0141799. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0141799. eCollection 2015.
Lyctus africanus is a cosmopolitan powder-post beetle that is considered one of the major pests threatening timber and timber products. Because infestations of this beetle are inconspicuous, damage is difficult to detect and identification is often delayed. We identified the chemical compounds involved in the aggregation behavior of L. africanus using preparations of crude hexanic extracts from male and female beetles (ME and FE, respectively). Both male and female beetles showed significant preferences for ME, which was found to contain three esters. FE was ignored by both the sexes. Further bioassay confirmed the role of esters in the aggregation behavior of L. africanus. Three esters were identified as 2-propyl dodecanoate, 3-pentyl dodecanoate, and 3-pentyl tetradecanoate. Further behavioral bioassays revealed 3-pentyl dodecanoate to play the main role in the aggregation behavior of female L. africanus beetles. However, significantly more beetles aggregated on a paper disk treated with a blend of the three esters than on a paper disk treated with a single ester. This is the first report on pheromone identification in L. africanus; in addition, the study for the first time presents 3-pentyl dodecanoate as an insect pheromone.
非洲粉蠹是一种分布广泛的粉蠹虫，被认为是威胁木材及木制品的主要害虫之一。由于这种甲虫的侵害不易察觉，损害难以检测，且鉴定往往会延迟。我们使用雄性和雌性甲虫的正己烷粗提物（分别为ME和FE）制剂，鉴定了参与非洲粉蠹聚集行为的化合物。雄性和雌性甲虫对ME均表现出明显的偏好，ME被发现含有三种酯类。两性均对FE不予理会。进一步的生物测定证实了酯类在非洲粉蠹聚集行为中的作用。三种酯类被鉴定为2-丙基十二烷酸酯、3-戊基十二烷酸酯和3-戊基十四烷酸酯。进一步的行为生物测定表明，3-戊基十二烷酸酯在雌性非洲粉蠹甲虫的聚集行为中起主要作用。然而，聚集在经三种酯类混合物处理的纸盘上的甲虫数量明显多于经单一酯类处理的纸盘。这是关于非洲粉蠹信息素鉴定的首次报告；此外，该研究首次将3-戊基十二烷酸酯作为一种昆虫信息素呈现。
