Guava volatiles enhance the sexual behavior of sudamerican fruit fly (diptera: tephritidae) males with no evident changes in their pheromone and cuticle chemical profiles.

BACHMANN GUILLERMO; KALINOVA ; BRIZOVA ; HOSKOVEC ; FERNÁNDEZ, P.C.; M. TERESA VERA; DF SEGURA

Congreso; 32nd Annual meeting of International Society of Chemical Ecology.; 2016

The males of some tephritid fruit fly species obtain compounds from plants that affect the chemical communication during courtship. Previous studies showed that Anastrepha fraterculus Wiedemann (Diptera: Tephritidae) males who had access to guava fruit volatiles are preferred by females over other males. Here we evaluated whether female preference for guava exposed males results from a change in the chemical composition of the male cuticle after exposure to guava (perfume effect, sensu Shelly et al., 2007). Alternatively, we address if guava exposure resulted in the incorporation of precursors of sexual pheromones (Tan & Nishida, 1995). We used two dimensional gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GCxGCxTOF-MS), electroantennography (EAG) and gas chromatography coupled with an electroantennographic detector (GC-EAD) to compare both, the chemical profile of volatiles, and compounds retained on the cuticles of exposed and non-exposed males. There were no major differences in the chemical profile between males both, for volatiles and for compounds retained on the cuticle. GC-EAD with female antennae as biological detectors revealed 16 consistent areas of depolarizations corresponding to 16 specific compunds. Four of these compounds have never been reported as EAG-active for A. fraterculus. The results suggest that the discrimination of guava exposed and non-exposed males is not based on chemical signals. Future work should address other source of signals (i.e. acoustic and visual) during the sexual display.