Bactrocera cucumis (French 1907), the 'cucumber fruit fly', is a horticultural pest in Australia that primarily infests cucurbits and has also been recorded from tomatoes, papaw and several other hosts. It does not respond to known male lures, cue-lure and methyl eugenol, making monitoring and control difficult. A cucumber volatile blend lure was recently developed in Hawaii and found to be an effective female-biased attractant for the melon fly B. cucurbitae. This lure was field tested in north Queensland, Australia in McPhail traps in comparison with orange ammonia, Cera Trap® and a control, and was found to more consistently trap B. cucumis than the other lures. B. cucumis were caught at 41% of the cucumber volatile lure trap clearances, compared with 27% of the orange ammonia, 18% of the Cera Trap and 16% of the control trap clearances. The cucumber volatile lure was more attractive to B. cucumis in low population densities and also trapped B. cucumis earlier on average than the other lures. Data analysed from the site with highest trap catches (Spring Creek) showed that the cucumber volatile lure caught significantly more B. cucumis than the other traps in four of the 11 trap clearance periods, and for the remaining clearances, no other trap type caught significantly more flies than the cucumber volatile lure. The cucumber volatile lure had a strong female-biased attraction but it was not significantly more female-biased than orange ammonia or Cera Trap. Cucumber volatile lure traps were cleaner to service resulting in better quality specimens than the orange ammonia trap or Cera Trap. These findings have potential implications for market access monitoring for determining pest freedom, and for biosecurity monitoring programmes in other countries that wish to detect B. cucumis early.
Passiflora maliformis is an introduced plant in Australia but its flowers are known to attract the native Jarvis’s fruit fly, Bactrocera jarvisi (Tryon). The present study identifies and quantifies likely attractant(s) of male B. jarvisi in P. maliformis flowers. The chemical compositions of the inner and outer coronal filaments, anther, stigma, ovary, sepal, and petal of P. maliformis were separately extracted with ethanol and analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Polyisoprenoid lipid precursors, fatty acids and their derivatives, and phenylpropanoids were detected in P. maliformis flowers. Phenylpropanoids included raspberry ketone, cuelure, zingerone, and zingerol, although compositions varied markedly amongst the flower parts. P. maliformis flowers were open for less than one day, and the amounts of some of the compounds decreased throughout the day. The attraction of male B. jarvisi to P. maliformis flowers is most readily explained by the presence of zingerone in these flowers.
Environmental contextQueensland fruit fly is a major pest of fruits and vegetables in eastern Australia, sometimes causing complete loss of unprotected crops. Odours that attract fruit flies can help control these pests and this study investigated how six fruit fly species smell these chemicals. The strength of fly responses to tested odours gives insight into the way flies smell and provides information for making better attractants, potentially reducing insecticide use. AbstractThe Queensland fruit fly (Bactrocera tryoni, Q-fly) is a major horticultural pest in eastern Australia. The deployment of male lures comprises an important component of several detection and control strategies for this pest. A novel fluorinated analogue of raspberry ketone (RK), raspberry ketone trifluoroacetate (RKTA), has been developed with the aim of further improving Q-fly control. RKTA elicited strong electroantennogram (EAG) responses from Q-flies whereas cuelure (CL) and melolure (ML) responses were not significantly greater than a negative control. Further experimentation showed that RKTA also elicited EAG response from five other fruit fly species, included flies known to be strongly attracted to CL (B. neohumeralis, B. kraussi and B. frauenfeldi), weakly attracted to CL (B. jarvisi), or non-responsive to CL (Zeugodacus cucumis), whereas seven other compounds, RK, CL, ML, raspberry ketone difluoroacetate, raspberry ketone monofluoroacetate, anisyl acetone and trimethylsilyl raspberry ketone, elicited only weak responses comparable with a negative control. However, fly EAG responses to RKTA are likely due at least in part to trifluoroethanoic acid, which is a hydrolysis product of RKTA and elicited strong EAG responses from all six species when tested alone. Furthermore, whereas ethanoic acid, methanoic acid and trifluoroethanoic acid all elicited strong EAG responses in Q-flies, the only corresponding RK ester to elicit an EAG response was RKTA, suggesting that RKTA hydrolyses quickly, whereas CL and ML do not. This is in contrast to the idea that CL readily hydrolyses on contact with atmospheric moisture, an assertion that has been made in the literature repeatedly.
Floral constituents of the Australian tar tree, Semecarpus australiensis, distributed in Melanesia and Northern Australia, were extracted with solvent, and analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The main constituents were 16-and 18-carbon fatty acids and their ethyl esters. Amongst the 67 identified compounds, zingerone was detected in minute quantity, providing the chemical basis for previous observations of fruit fly attraction to the flowers. The present study is the first to report the chemical profile of tar tree flowers.
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