Degradation of Odour signals by air pollution: chemical Mechanisms, plume dynamics and INsect-Orientation behaviour (DOMINO)

该项目将研究空气污染扰乱昆虫用于关键过程(如交配或寻找花朵)的重要空气传播化学信号的机制，并将评估这一现象的生态后果。空气污染是一个经常出现在报纸头版的全球问题。尽管立法严厉，但许多地区的污染水平仍高于法定上限。例如，在2016年1月的第一周，伦敦的多个地点就超过了交通产生的气体二氧化氮的年度限制。超过这些限制不仅会对人类健康构成重大风险，还会导致欧盟对英国处以巨额罚款。在发展中国家，这个问题可能会更严重。例如，2015年12月，中国在北京发布了有史以来第二次空气污染红色预警，导致车辆限制使用和学校停课。然而，空气污染并不局限于大型工业化城市。农村地区还经常受到来自城市和主要道路的污染的影响，并日益受到臭氧污染的影响，这既是因为全球背景的上升，也是因为经常出现由天气引起的间歇性臭氧峰值，这些臭氧峰值通常被称为臭氧泡沫。其中一次是在2003年8月的热浪中引发的，据信已导致英格兰和威尔士的2139人死亡。对公共健康的关注推动了当前减少空气污染的努力，但有强有力的证据表明，植物和昆虫的健康也处于危险之中。例如，蜜蜂通过跟随花释放的挥发性有机化合物(VOC)的独特混合物来寻找食物。然而，我们和其他人最近在实验室实验中证明，常见的空气污染物，如柴油废气和臭氧，可以破坏这些花香气味，但我们还不知道这可能会在现实世界中产生什么后果。尽管如此，很明显，这些信号的任何干扰都可能对它们提供的重要生态系统服务产生广泛的、迄今尚未量化的影响，例如授粉(全球估计为3610亿美元，英国为6.91亿GB)和虫害监管(全球为4170亿美元)。该项目将从根本上推进我们对空气污染如何与VOCs相互作用的概念理解，许多昆虫依赖这些VOCs与环境进行交流和互动。首先，我们将进行研究，以提供全面的证据，说明一系列关键的空气污染物(二氧化氮、硝酸根和臭氧)是如何在分离和组合中与一系列选定的VOCs反应和相互作用的，这些VOCs的功能要么是花卉引诱剂，要么是信息素。然后，我们将确定一对模型昆虫--银蛾和黄尾大黄蜂--能够检测到这些反应的哪些产物。接下来，我们将首次测量与大气混合过程和昆虫导航相关的时间尺度上气味羽流中的降解是如何在空间上发生的。最后，我们将利用这些数据：(I)量化柴油废气(二氧化氮污染的主要贡献者)和臭氧污染对雄蛾在野外研究中定位雌蛾和传粉者定位和授粉的能力的影响；以及(Ii)在风洞中确定羽流中气味降解对飞向选定VOCs的蛾飞行定向行为的影响。这将为我们提供关于污染物可以降解昆虫使用的挥发性气味的机制以及这对昆虫行为生态学和授粉这一至关重要的生态系统服务的影响的重大进展。

This project will investigate the mechanisms by which air pollution can disrupt vital airborne chemical signals that insects use for critical processes, such as mating or finding a flower, and will evaluate the ecological consequences of this phenomenon.Air pollution is a global issue that regularly hits the front pages of newspapers. Despite tough legislation, pollution levels in many areas remain above the legal limits. For example, multiple locations in London breached annual limits for the traffic-produced gas nitrogen dioxide within the first week of January 2016. Exceeding these limits not only poses major risks for human health, but also leads to substantial EU imposed fines for the UK. In developing nations the problem can be even greater. For example, in December 2015 China issued its second ever "red alert" for air pollution in Beijing, resulting in restrictions on vehicle use and the closure of schools. Air pollution, however, is not limited to large industrialised cities. Rural areas are also regularly exposed to pollution transported from cities and major roadways and are increasingly impacted by ozone pollution due to both a rise in the global background and regular weather-induced episodic ozone peaks often referred to as ozone bubbles. One such episode was triggered during the August 2003 heat wave and is thought to have resulted in 2139 deaths in England and Wales.Concerns over public health have driven current efforts to reduce air pollution, but there is strong evidence to suggest that the health of plants and insects are also at risk. The honey bee for example, finds food by following the unique blend of volatile organic compounds (VOC) emitted by flowers. However, we and others have recently demonstrated in laboratory experiments that common air pollutants, such as diesel exhaust and ozone, can disrupt these floral odours, but we do not yet understand what consequences this might have in the real-world. Nonetheless, it is clear that any disruption to these signals may have wide ranging and as yet unquantified impacts on the important ecosystem services they provide, such as pollination (estimated to be $361bn globally and £691m in the UK) and pest-regulation ($417bn globally).This project will result in a step-change in our knowledge of this subject by radically advancing our conceptual understanding of how air pollution interacts with the VOCs that many insects rely on to communicate and interact with their environment. Initially we will conduct studies to provide comprehensive evidence of how a range of key air pollutants (nitrogen dioxide, nitrate radicals and ozone) in isolation and in combination, react and interact with a series of selected VOCs, which function as either floral attractants or pheromones. We will then establish which products of these reactions a pair of model insects, the silver y moth and the buff-tailed bumblebee, are capable of detecting. Next, we will for the first time measure how degradation occurs spatially within odour plumes at time scales relevant to atmospheric mixing processes and insect navigation. Finally, we will use these data to: (i) quantify the effects of diesel exhaust (a major contributor to nitrogen dioxide pollution) and ozone pollution on the ability of male moths to locate females and pollinators to locate and pollinate flowers in field studies; and (ii) establish the effects of odour degradation in the plume on in-flight orientation behaviour of moths flying to the selected VOCs in a wind tunnel. This will provide us with a significantly advanced erudition of the mechanisms by which pollutants can degrade volatile odours used by insects and the effects that this has on insect behavioural ecology and the vital ecosystem service of pollination.