Abstract
Air potato, Dioscorea bulbifera L., is an invasive vine found in the southeastern United States and is native to Asia and Africa. The air potato leaf beetle Lilioceris cheni (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae), is a host specific biological control agent introduced for D. bulbifera control. In this study, odor cues that control the attraction of L. cheni to D. bulbifera were investigated. The first experiment investigated the response of L. cheni to D. bulbifera leaves versus no leaves in the presence or absence of air flow. The experiment showed a significant response of L. cheni to D. bulbifera leaves in the presence of air flow with leaves placed upwind. When air flow and/or leaves were absent, L. cheni dispersed randomly between the upwind and downwind targets, indicating L. cheni uses volatiles from D. bulbifera in host selection. The second experiment investigated L. cheni response to undamaged, larval-damaged, and adult-damaged plants. Lilioceris cheni showed preference to move towards conspecific damaged plants compared to undamaged plants but did not discriminate between larvae-damaged or adult-damaged plants. The third experiment investigated volatile profiles of damaged D. bulbifera plants using gas chromatography coupled with mass spectroscopy. We found significant differences in volatile profiles between adult and larval damaged plants compared to mechanically damaged and undamaged plants, with increases in 11 volatile compounds. However, larval and adult-damaged volatile profiles did not differ. The information acquired during this study could be used to develop strategies to monitor for L. cheni and improve its biological control program.
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Data Availability
Data are available on the Institutional Repository at the University of Florida (IR@UF), and available directly from the authors upon request.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Lukasz Stelinski (University of Florida) to provide us the wind tunnel, Iris Strzyzewski and Austin Fife for statistic mentoring.
Funding
The research of this article was funded by a Southern SARE grant (GS22-255) awarded to XM and JG, and by the US Department of Agriculture - Forest Service – Biological Control of Invasive Forest Pests program (BCIFP-R8-22) awarded to XM and CM.
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Conceptualization: XM, JLG, AMG, SH; Methodology: XM, AMG; Formal analysis: JLG, XM, AMG; Investigation: JLG, AMG, XM; Resources: XM, AMG, SH, CM; Writing - Original Draft: JLG, XM; Writing - Review & Editing: JLG, AMG, CM, SH, XM; Supervision: XM, AMG, JLM, CM, SH; Project administration: XM, JLM, CM; Funding acquisition: XM, JLG, CM.
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Griesheimer, J.L., Gaffke, A.M., Minteer, C. et al. Attraction of the Air Potato Leaf Beetle, Lilioceris Cheni, (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) to leaf Volatiles of the Air Potato, Dioscorea bulbifera. J Chem Ecol 49, 498–506 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-023-01436-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-023-01436-z