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

食草性昆虫利用植物气味来寻找寄主植物。当风和湍流导致植物散发的气味羽流蜿蜒并破裂时，它们能够追踪寄主气味来源的机制尚不清楚。这种信息的缺乏在很大程度上是因为很难通过捕获现场的挥发性化合物来描述和量化气味的移动。建议进行一项田间和实验室研究，以确定金龟子没有使用附近明显合适的寄主植物丛生植物，是因为找不到它们，还是因为质量(化感物质、营养物质)导致它们被拒绝，如果甲虫找到它们的话。这将通过绘制“气味景观”来预测哪些植物丛可以被寄居的甲虫找到或找不到。示踪剂挥发物和寄主植物挥发物将被释放，并在田间使用低温诱捕技术重新捕获。将通过实验室选择测试和田间实验来确定发现植物克隆后甲虫是否可以接受。这项研究将有助于了解害虫如何选择食用植物，并在害虫防治中具有潜在的应用前景。

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.