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Insects
Special Issues
Post-Harvest Insect Chemical and Behavioral Ecology
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Post-Harvest Insect Chemical and Behavioral Ecology

A special issue of Insects (ISSN 2075-4450). This special issue belongs to the section "Insect Behavior and Pathology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 February 2023) | Viewed by 8034

Special Issue Editors

Dr. William Robert Morrison

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
SDA-ARS Center for Grain and Animal Health Research, 1515 College Avenue, Manhattan, KS 66502, USA
Interests: stored products; chemical ecology; behavior; integrated pest management; biological control; invasive species; behaviorally-based management
Prof. Dr. Thomas W. Phillips

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Entomology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506, USA
Interests: stored-product insects; post-harvest insects; stored grain; fumigation; fumigation alternatives; pheromones; mating disruption
Dr. Erin Scully

E-Mail
Guest Editor
USDA-ARS Center for Grain and Animal Health Research, 1515 College Avenue, Manhattan, KS 66502, USA
Interests: chemical ecology; arthropod genomics; functional genomics; molecular biology; population genetics; stored product entomology

Special Issue Information

There are clear and pressing challenges with post-harvest pest management, which have  included the rise in resistance to phosphine, fewer fumigant options today than 30 years ago (including the phase-out of methyl bromide), and escalating demand from consumers for commodities that are organic and remain free of pesticide residues throughout the post-harvest supply chain. Thus, the time has never been so ideal for developing and implementing alternative integrated pest management (IPM) strategies that make use of semiochemicals and other sensory cues to manipulate behavior to reduce post-harvest losses. In this Special Issue, we highlight both essential fundamental and applied studies that are developing important biological information on the chemical ecology and behavioral ecology of insects in post-harvest systems around the world. We encourage submissions of novel, high quality work on chemical ecology or behavioral ecology of post-harvest insects from any scale—molecular to ecosystems. This research will hopefully contribute to the development of the next generation of behaviorally-based management tactics for post-harvest insects to reduce food loss and increase global food security.

Dr. Rob Morrison
Prof. Dr. Thomas W. Phillips
Dr. Erin Scully
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Insects is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • chemical ecology
  • behavior
  • post-harvest
  • taxis
  • integrated pest management
  • semiochemicals

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 1818 KiB  
Article
Developing Lines of Queensland Fruit Flies with Different Levels of Response to a Kairomone Lure
by Maryam Yazdani
Insects 2022, 13(8), 666; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/insects13080666 - 22 Jul 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1344
Abstract
The Queensland fruit fly (Q-fly), Bactrocera tryoni (Froggatt) is a serious horticultural pest in Australia because it is highly invasive and destructive. Among all pest management practices, sterile insect techniques (SIT) and male annihilation techniques (MAT) are important control options for many tephritid [...] Read more.
The Queensland fruit fly (Q-fly), Bactrocera tryoni (Froggatt) is a serious horticultural pest in Australia because it is highly invasive and destructive. Among all pest management practices, sterile insect techniques (SIT) and male annihilation techniques (MAT) are important control options for many tephritid fruit fly pests, including Q-fly. However, simultaneous applications of MAT and SIT require the wild males to be responsive to a lure while the released sterile males remain largely unresponsive. In this study, a series of artificial selection experiments was conducted to develop lines of Q-fly with different levels of response to the male-specific lure Cue-lure® (CL). After only five cycles of artificial selections, lines of high responsiveness (HR) and low responsiveness (LR) males diverging significantly in their response to the lure were developed. In the field cage experiment, the number of trapped males in fruit fly traps was significantly lower in the LR line than both the HR line and the control which supports the laboratory results. However, when artificial selection was stopped at F5 and retested after two generations, the number of unresponsive males dropped drastically compared to the rate of response of wild flies. Because the selection can be conducted only on males, it would be difficult to eliminate the dominant responsive alleles in the system without continuous selection. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Post-Harvest Insect Chemical and Behavioral Ecology)
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11 pages, 1563 KiB  
Article
The Correlation between Volatile Compounds Emitted from Sitophilus granarius (L.) and Its Electrophysiological and Behavioral Responses
by Lijun Cai, Sarina Macfadyen, Baozhen Hua, Wei Xu and Yonglin Ren
Insects 2022, 13(5), 478; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/insects13050478 - 20 May 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1624
Abstract
The granary weevil Sitophilus granarius (L.) is one of the most serious primary insect pests of stored products. When S. granarius present in grains, various volatile organic compounds are released as chemical signals which can be used to detect the insects. In this [...] Read more.
The granary weevil Sitophilus granarius (L.) is one of the most serious primary insect pests of stored products. When S. granarius present in grains, various volatile organic compounds are released as chemical signals which can be used to detect the insects. In this study, volatile chemical compounds released from S. granarius were analyzed using the headspace solid phase micro-extraction (HS-SPME) coupled with gas chromatography (GC)–mass spectrometry (MS) techniques. Two key compounds, 3-hydroxy-2-butanone and 1-pentadecene, were identified from mixed gender of S. granarius adults at high density. Moreover, both male and female adults showed dose-dependent electroantennography (EAG) responses to 3-hydroxy-2-butanone. In behavioral assays, S. granarius was attracted to 3-hydroxy-2-butanone at 0.001 µg/10 µL but repelled at 10 µg/10 µL or higher. S. granarius was consistently repelled by 1-pentadecene at concentrations at 0.001 and 1000 µg/10 µL. 3-hydroxy-2-butanone and 1-pentadecene have considerable potential to offer in the development of new approaches for the monitoring and management of this destructive stored grain insect pest. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Post-Harvest Insect Chemical and Behavioral Ecology)
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14 pages, 718 KiB  
Article
Natural and Synthetic Repellents for Pest Management of the Storage Mite Tyrophagus putrescentiae (Schrank) (Sarcoptiformes: Acaridae)
by Naomi Manu, Mark Wesley Schilling and Thomas Wesley Phillips
Insects 2021, 12(8), 711; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/insects12080711 - 09 Aug 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2473
Abstract
The fumigant pesticide methyl bromide (MB) was used for stored products, but it is now banned for most uses in many countries as an ozone-depleting substance. MB was the only pesticide used to manage the ham mite, Tyrophagus putrescentiae, which is the [...] Read more.
The fumigant pesticide methyl bromide (MB) was used for stored products, but it is now banned for most uses in many countries as an ozone-depleting substance. MB was the only pesticide used to manage the ham mite, Tyrophagus putrescentiae, which is the most significant pest of dry cured hams. Effective alternatives to MB are needed to develop integrated pest management (IPM) programs for this pest. This study evaluated plant essential oils and food-safe compounds as repellents to directly protect hams from infestation. Experiments to assess the repellency to orientation, oviposition, and population growth of mites on pieces of aged country hams were conducted. Test compounds at different concentrations were dissolved in respective solvents and compared to the solvent control. Results showed that C8910, a mixture of three short-chain fatty acids, and the sesquiterpene ketone nootkatone had repellency indices of (RI) of 85.6% and 82.3%, respectively, at a concentration of 0.1 mg/cm2, when applied to a Petri dish arena. DEET and icaridin were also tested but performed poorly with RIs below 70% even at 0.1 mg/cm2.The monoterpene alcohol geraniol had the highest RI of 96.3% at 0.04 mg/cm2. Ham pieces dipped in C8910 and nootkatone at 150 ppm each had RIs of 89.3% and 82.8%, respectively. In general, as the concentrations of test compounds increased, the numbers of eggs that were laid on these treated ham cubes decreased after the 48 h exposure time. Ham pieces dipped in different concentrations of test compounds and then inoculated with 20 adult mites showed a significant decrease in mite population growth compared to control pieces after 14 days. The results of these experiments suggest that some plant secondary metabolites and synthetic food-safe compounds could serve as potential alternatives for managing mites on hams. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Post-Harvest Insect Chemical and Behavioral Ecology)
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12 pages, 608 KiB  
Article
Volatile Infochemicals from Rhyzopertha dominica Larvae and Larval Feces Involved in Theocolax elegans Host Habitat Location
by Giulia Giunti, Orlando Campolo, Pasquale Caccamo, Francesca Laudani and Vincenzo Palmeri
Insects 2021, 12(2), 142; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/insects12020142 - 07 Feb 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1618
Abstract
The development of biologically based approaches for stored product pest control is needed to reduce chemical inputs. Bioassays were performed to investigate host habitat location in the trophic interaction durum wheat/Rhyzopertha dominica/Theocolax elegans. GC-MS analyses were carried out to [...] Read more.
The development of biologically based approaches for stored product pest control is needed to reduce chemical inputs. Bioassays were performed to investigate host habitat location in the trophic interaction durum wheat/Rhyzopertha dominica/Theocolax elegans. GC-MS analyses were carried out to identify some chemical compounds produced by the host-related substrates. Choice and no-choice experiments demonstrated that female parasitoids were poorly attracted to intact kernels with respect to the infested substrates. Furthermore, T. elegans females performed longer residence time on infested wheat, and they generally displayed a short-term like fidelity for this cue, remaining on it during the whole observation. Infested wheat emitted one chemical (fenchone), which is possibly linked to host larvae presence, while the feces produced by host larvae emitted some other characteristic compounds. Results demonstrated that the presence of host larvae is a key factor for T. elegans host habitat location, considering that the attractiveness of the undamaged wheat is irrelevant. Furthermore, parasitoid females tended to stay on attractive cues, limiting the risk of contamination of other commodities. Biological control tools may be useful to improve the efficiency of pest management programs, but their application should be carefully evaluated. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Post-Harvest Insect Chemical and Behavioral Ecology)
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