Development of a new vaccination method for Japanese oak wilt prevention

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Japanese Oak Wilt is a typical forest epidemics caused by a mass attack of a tiny ambrosia beetle, Platypus quercivorus and its associated fungus, Raffaelea quercivora. To control this forest epidemics enormous efforts have been made, but no effective control method has been established. The present study tried to apply plant hormones such as methyl jasmonate and ethylene that are known to increase in response to injury, to the healthy trees to induce host resistance and thereby protect host trees from beetles' attack. The injection with these hormones into healthy trees changed the pattern of mass attack and decreased the number of beetles visited to the trees. However, delayed mass attack occurred onto some of the hormone-treated trees, suggesting the effect of hormone injection was transient. The present results implied the influence of plant hormone on the aggregation behavior of the beetles, but further studies are needed to confirm this hypothesis.