Evidence of Cuticle Chemicals of Heortia vitessoides (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) Larvae Influencing the Aggregation Behavior of Conspecific Larvae

(Lepidoptera: Crambidae) is a severe pest of plants, which produce high-priced agarwood. The larval stage of this pest is gregarious, usually forming large aggregates during young instars and becoming solitary during the fifth instar. We hypothesize that the cuticle chemicals of young-instar larvae...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Insects (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2024-09, Vol.15 (10), p.746
Main Authors: Yang, Xinya, Li, Guangsheng, Wang, Cai
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acetone
Aggregates
Aggregation behavior
aggregation preference
Aquilaria sinensis
Attractants
Behavior
Chemical compounds
Chemicals
Communication
Comparative analysis
Composition
Control
Crambidae
Cuticles
Developmental stages
Environmental aspects
Epicuticle
Exoskeleton
extraction
gregariousness
Group dynamics
Heortia vitessoides
Hexane
Hexanes
Insects
Instars
Larvae
Leaves
Lepidoptera
Moths
Pesticides
Pests
Plantations
Preferences
Repellents
Solvents
Variance analysis
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Summary:(Lepidoptera: Crambidae) is a severe pest of plants, which produce high-priced agarwood. The larval stage of this pest is gregarious, usually forming large aggregates during young instars and becoming solitary during the fifth instar. We hypothesize that the cuticle chemicals of young-instar larvae could promote larval aggregating, whereas the cuticle chemicals of late-instar larvae would no longer attract young-instar larvae. In this study, two-choice tests were conducted to evaluate the effect of cuticle extracts of second- and fifth-instar larvae on the aggregation preference of second-instar larvae. Results show that significantly more larvae aggregated on the leaves treated with the hexane extract of second-instar larvae than on untreated leaves. However, the hexane extract of fifth-instar larvae had no significant effect on the aggregation preference of the second-instar conspecific larvae. Interestingly, acetone extracts of both second- and fifth-instar larvae repelled the second-instar conspecific larvae throughout the 8 h experiment. Our study shows that cuticle chemicals of larvae may play a role in the group dynamics of this pest, which may contribute to screening novel attractants and repellents for . Detailed chemical analyses of the extracts and identification of the compounds involved in larval attracting and repelling would be valuable in future studies.
ISSN:2075-4450
2075-4450
DOI:10.3390/insects15100746