Inhibitory Copulation Effect of Vibrational Rival Female Signals of Three Stink Bug Species as a Tool for Mating Disruption

Abstract

Stink bugs are major pests in diverse crops around the world. Pest management strategies based on insect behavioral manipulation could help to develop biorational management strategies of stink bugs. Insect mating disruption using vibratory signals is an approach with high potential for pest management. The objective of this work was to investigate the effect of conspecific female rival signals on the mating behavior and copulation of three stink bug species to establish their potential for mating disruption. Previously recorded female rival signals were played back to bean plants where pairs of the Neotropical brown stink bug, Euschistus heros, and two green stink bugs, Chinavia ubica and Chinavia impicticornis were placed. Vibratory communication and mating behavior were recorded for each pair throughout the experimental time (20 min). Female rival signals show a disrupting effect on the reproductive behavior of three conspecific investigated stink bug species. This effect was more clearly expressed in E. heros and C. ubica than in C. impicticornis. The likelihood of copulating in pairs placed on control plants, without rival signals, increased 29.41 times in E. heros, 4.6 times in C. ubica and 1.71 times in C. impicticornis. However, in the last case, the effect of female rivalry signals in copulation was not significant. The effect of mating disruption of female rival signals of the three stink bug species may originate from the observed reduction in specific vibratory communication signals emitted, which influences the duet formation and further development of different phases of mating behavior. Our results suggest that female rival signals have potential for application in manipulation and disruption of mating behavior of stink bugs. Further work needs to focus on the effects of female rival signals used in long duration experiments and also their interactions with chemical communication of stink bugs.

Vibrational calling signals improve the efficacy of pheromone traps to capture the brown marmorated stink bug

“…Besides semiochemicals, a new term, semiophysicals, has been recently coined (Nieri et al 2021) to indicate the use of physical stimuli (e.g., lights, sounds, and vibrations) to interfere with pest behaviors. In particular, the use of substrate-borne vibrations for behavioral manipulation has been the object of conspicuous investigation in the last decade (e.g., Eriksson et al 2012;Laumann et al 2018;Krugner and Gordon 2018;Gordon et al 2019;Mazzoni et al 2019;Dias et al 2021). Thanks to such studies, Communicated by Donald Weber. the potential for pest insect control methods employing this communication modality is becoming evident (Polajnar et al 2015).…”

Life History Traits of the Pentatomidae (Hemiptera) for the Development of Pest Management Tools

“…Other traits of the Pentatomidae that can be targeted for pest management are the utilisation of alarm pheromones for enhancing natural enemies [175], and the use of substrate-borne vibration for mating disruption [45,47] and surveillance [164,165]. To date, there is no study which shows that the utilisation of alarm pheromone for enhancing natural enemies can suppress the utilisation of insecticides, but these volatiles might be valuable as complementary tools to minimise insecticide spraying.…”

“…Although this hypothesis remains to be tested, the authors suggested that the background noise could induce stress, resulting in shorter copulation periods and/or a reduction in the efficiency of sperm transfer. A recent study [47] investigated the potential of female rival signals for mating disruption in E. heros, Chinavia ubica (Rolston) and Chinavia impicticornis (Stål). In the presence of rival female signals, fewer males were able to reach females, and a significant reduction in copulating pairs was observed.…”

Influence of Sunlight Incidence and Fruit Chemical Features on Oviposition Site Selection in Mango by Anastrepha obliqua: Implications for Management

“…To successfully manage a pest taking advantage of vulnerable aspects/stages in its biological cycle, behavior, or population dynamics, field studies are critical [1][2][3][4]. For example, mating disruption [5,6], attract and kill [7], push-pull [8,9], trap cropping [10][11][12], and other environmental manipulation strategies for pest control [13,14], all hinge on a deep understanding of the behavior of the pest [1,15]. In the case of fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae), the behavior of females is particularly relevant as they are the ones that lay eggs inside fruit, causing severe economic damage when larvae start to feed on the valuable pulp [16].…”