Mountain Pine Beetles Use Volatile Cues to Locate Host Limber Pine and Avoid Non-Host Great Basin Bristlecone Pine

PloS One
Curtis A GrayAndrew D Giunta

Abstract

The tree-killing mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins) is an important disturbance agent of western North American forests and recent outbreaks have affected tens of millions of hectares of trees. Most western North American pines (Pinus spp.) are hosts and are successfully attacked by mountain pine beetles whereas a handful of pine species are not suitable hosts and are rarely attacked. How pioneering females locate host trees is not well understood, with prevailing theory involving random landings and/or visual cues. Here we show that female mountain pine beetles orient toward volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from host limber pine (Pinus flexilis James) and away from VOCs of non-host Great Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva Bailey) in a Y-tube olfactometer. When presented with VOCs of both trees, females overwhelmingly choose limber pine over Great Basin bristlecone pine. Analysis of VOCs collected from co-occurring limber and Great Basin bristlecone pine trees revealed only a few quantitative differences. Noticeable differences included the monoterpenes 3-carene and D-limonene which were produced in greater amounts by host limber pine. We found no evidence that 3-carene is important for beetles when sel...Continue Reading

Citations

Sep 13, 2017·Molecules : a Journal of Synthetic Chemistry and Natural Product Chemistry·Min HuangQiong Hu
Aug 17, 2018·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Jasmijn HillaertDries Bonte
Jun 21, 2020·Antioxidants·Ekaterina ProshkinaAlexey Moskalev

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