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Exploiting scents of distress: Making maize plants more attractive to beneficial insects
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| Coordinating organisation: | Laboratory of evolutionary entomology |
| Description: | When plants are attacked by insect herbivores they respond by emitting specific volatiles that are highly attractive to the natural enemies of the herbivores, such as predators and parasitic wasps. It has been proposed that this natural indirect defense of the plants can be exploited to improve the biological control of pest insects. Maize plants have been particularly well studied in this context and are amenable for enhanced attractiveness to parasitic wasps. We propose to identify the key volatile compounds that are used by parasitic wasps to locate and parasitize caterpillars that are pests on maize in Mexico. Recent research results imply that such compounds exist and methods have been developed for their identification. Upon identification, a combination of behavioral, chemical and molecular methods will be employed to obtain maize varieties that are particularly attractive to the dominating native parasitic wasps. It is envisioned that with this approach we can take the first step towards the incorporation of a natural indirect plant defense trait into an ecologically sound and sustainable pest control strategy. |
| Start: | 2007-05-01 |
| End: | 2009-04-30 |
| Species: | maize |
| Categories | |
| ARD-theme: | environment |
| Commodity: | cereals |
| Activity: | research |
| Registered related items | |
| Donor organisations: | 1 |
| Participating organisations: | 2 |
| Programmes funding: | 1 |
| Last editing: | 2007-12-10 12:14:00 |