ESSENTIAL OIL OF Schinus polygama AS ATTRACTANT OF WILD MALES OF Ceratitis capitata

JOFRÉ BARUD F; LÓPEZ S; ZAMBIASI M; LÓPEZ ML

Congreso; XXXII Reunión Anual de la Sociedad de Biología de Cuyo; 2014

Sociedad de Biología de Cuyo

It is known that essential oils have different effects on behaviours of insects. Previous experiments with the essential oil of Schinus polygama showed that this oil might be an attractant of sterile males of Ceratitis capitata (tsl). In this work, our objective was to evaluate whether the same behaviour is showed by wild males of C. capitata which may indicate that this oil has the potential for future technological developments such as lure and kill.Attractant activity of the essential oil was evaluated at laboratory conditions(24 ± 2◦C, 50 ± 5% RH) in a Y-tube olfactometer. The time (s) flies spent in each arm of the device was recorded. Flies? final choice was the arm they werein at the end of a 2 min experimental period. On the other hand, attractancy was also evaluated in outdoor conditions by dual choice test in field cages. Data analyses were preformed with the Wilcoxon signed-rank test and choices were analyzed by the Chi-square test. Both assays showed that wild males of C. capitata were significantly attracted by the essential oil (p<0.05). Thus, the components in the essential oils of S. polygama could be candidate substances for the control of C. capitata. Acknowledgements: To FONCYT (PICT2013-2076). LML, DS are research scientists of CONICET. FJB is a fellow of CONICET.