Collaborative Research: Host Finding and Acceptance by a Specialized Insect Herbivore

食草昆虫利用植物的气味来寻找寄主植物。当风和湍流导致植物的气味羽流蜿蜒而散时，它们能够追踪宿主气味的机制尚不清楚。这种信息的缺乏在很大程度上是由于难以通过在现场捕获挥发性化合物来描述和量化气味运动。提出了一项实地和实验室研究，以确定金丝体甲虫不使用附近明显合适的寄主植物簇是因为找不到它们，还是因为质量（化感化学物质、营养物质）导致甲虫找到它们时被拒绝。这将通过绘制“气味景观”来完成，以预测哪些植物团块可以被殖民的甲虫找到或找不到。示踪挥发物和寄主植物挥发物将被释放并利用低温捕获技术在田间重新捕获。实验室选择试验和实地试验将用于确定发现后植物克隆是否可被甲虫接受。该研究将有助于了解害虫如何选择其食物植物，并在害虫防治中具有潜在的应用价值。

Herbivorous insects use plant odors to find host plants. The mechanism by which they are able to track host odors to their source when wind and turbulence cause odor plumes coming from plants to meander and break up is not known. This dearth of information results in large part from the difficulty of describing and quantifying odor movement by capturing volatile compounds in the field. A field and laboratory study is proposed in which it will be determined whether chrysomelid beetles do not use apparently suitable clumps of host plants nearby because they are not findable or because quality (allelochemicals, nutrients) causes them to be rejected if the beetles do find them. This will be done by mapping the "odor landscape" to predict which plant clumps are findable or unfindable by colonizing beetles. Tracer volatiles and host-plant volatiles will be released and recaptured in the field using a cryogenic trapping technique. Laboratory choice tests and field experiments will be used to determine whether plant clones are acceptable to the beetles upon discovery. This research will contribute to the understanding of how insect pests select their food plants and has potential application in pest control.