Development of a new vaccination method for Japanese oak wilt prevention

日本栎枯萎病是由一种微小的食心虫--栎食鸭嘴虫及其伴生真菌--栎食拉斐尔菌（Raffaelea quercivora）的大规模攻击引起的典型森林流行病。为了控制这种森林流行病，已经做出了巨大的努力，但还没有建立有效的控制方法。本研究试图将已知响应于伤害而增加的植物激素如茉莉酸甲酯和乙烯应用于健康树木，以诱导宿主抗性，从而保护宿主树木免受甲虫的攻击。将这些激素注射到健康的树木中，改变了大规模攻击的模式，减少了访问树木的甲虫数量。然而，延迟的大规模攻击发生在一些激素处理的树木，表明激素注射的效果是短暂的。本研究结果提示植物激素对甲虫聚集行为有影响，但这一假说还有待进一步研究证实。

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.