Department of Biological Chemistry, Institute of Advanced Chemistry of Catalonia (CSIC), Jordi Girona 18-26, 08034, Barcelona, Spain.
Sci Rep. 2021 Jan 13;11(1):1223. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-79550-1.
Plant essential oils are considered as important bio-sources for the development of natural and environmentally safe pest control tools due to their multiple modes of action on insects. In this paper we have evaluated the activity of commercially available thyme oil and its constituents thymol, carvacrol, and p-cymene, as potential disruptants of the pheromone-mediated communication in the major pest moths Spodoptera littoralis Boisduval (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), and Grapholita molesta (Busck) (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae). In electroantennographic assays, the antennal response of males to thyme oil, thymol, and carvacrol was altered at high doses (10-10 µg), shifting the signal waveform into a biphasic negative-positive potential that caused a decay in the response. In wind tunnel assays, pheromone-mediated attraction of males of both species was interrupted in presence of thyme oil. Further trials demonstrated that thymol alone reduced the number of G. molesta and S. littoralis males landing on the pheromone source. This effect did not differ from that of thyme oil, although the latter provoked a significant reduction on downwind behavior steps in S. littoralis. Overall, our findings provide a preliminary basis for delving into the effect of thyme oil, and especially of its major constituent thymol, as potential mating disruptants of both species.
植物精油因其对昆虫的多种作用模式而被认为是开发天然和环境安全的害虫防治工具的重要生物来源。在本文中，我们评估了市售的百里香精油及其成分百里酚、香芹酚和对伞花烃作为主要害虫斜纹夜蛾（鳞翅目：夜蛾科）和桃小食心虫（鳞翅目：卷蛾科）信息素介导的通讯潜在干扰物的活性。在触角电位测定试验中，雄性对百里香精油、百里酚和香芹酚的触角反应在高剂量（10-10 µg）下发生改变，信号波形变为双相负正电位，导致反应衰减。在风洞试验中，两种物种的雄性在存在百里香精油的情况下，其信息素介导的吸引力被中断。进一步的试验表明，单独的百里酚减少了桃小食心虫和斜纹夜蛾雄性降落在信息素源上的数量。这种效果与百里香精油的效果没有区别，尽管后者在斜纹夜蛾的下风行为步骤中引起了显著的减少。总的来说，我们的研究结果为研究百里香精油，特别是其主要成分百里酚作为两种物种潜在的交配干扰物的效果提供了初步的依据。
