Study On Trichogramma Exploit Antiaphrodisiac Pheromone From The Small Cabbage White Butterfly Pieris Rapae

Anti-aphrodisiac is a kind of sex pheromone of insects, which evolved in males to enhance their post-mating success by reducing the attractiveness of females to conspecific mates. This is the first report about Trichogramma wasps spy on anti-aphrodisiac pheromone to find there hosts. This reserch focused on four kinds of Trichogramma exploit antiaphrodisiac pheromone Methyl-salicylate and Indole from the small cabbage white butterfly Pieris rapae. The results are as follow:(1) Data showed that Trichogramma dendrolimi Matsumura, Trichogramma chilonis Ishii, and Trichogrammatoidea hypsipylae Nagaraja could exploit the anti-aphrodisiac mixture of methyl salicylate and indole innately, Trichogramma ostriniae Pang et Chen couldn’t.(2) Trichogrammas could only employ certain range of anti-aphrodisiac. The abilities that wasps could employ anti-aphrodisiac from high to low are:T. dendrolimi, T. chilonis, Trichogrammatoidea hypsipylae,and T. ostriniae.(3)T. ostriniae and Trichogrammatoidea hypsipylae climbed on the butterflies randomly. They could not discriminate between males and females, or mated and virgin females. However, T. dendrolimi and T. chilonis prefer to ride on mated females.(4) Breeding and natural Trichogramma wasps showed different ability on employ anti-aphrodisiac.,The difference between T.ostriniae is larger then T. dendrolimi and T. chilonis.(5) T.osrtiniae changed the espionage-and-ride strategy for P. rapae after learning experiment.