Feeding Selectivity Of Coptotermes Formosanus To Six Wood Species And Olfactory Response Of Important Compounds

It is difficult to control Coptotermes formosanus because of their hidden life and their main and secondary nests.The bait trapping technology is the main method to control C.formosanus at present.In the case of adequate food,different kinds of termites have strong selectivity to food.In order to improve the trapping effect of termites,it is particularly important to screen out trap agents with better trapping effect.The results showed that different kinds and contents of secondary compounds in wood had certain effects on termite feeding.In this study,six kinds of timber,such as Pinus sp.,Fagus sylvatica,Cunninghamia lanceolata,Fraxinus mandshurica,Kahaya seegalesis,Tectona grandis,which are commonly used in decoration and building materials on the market were selected.Through feeding preference test,it was found that C.formosanus preferred to eat pine.Further feeding experiments showed that C.formosanus’s feeding preference had nothing to do with microorganisms in soil.Soxhlet extraction and solid-phase microextraction were used to extract volatile components from pine wood,and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry(GC-MS)was used to analyze the chemical composition of volatile components.44 components were identified by Soxhlet extraction and 28 components were identified by solid phase microextraction.Eight compounds(α-terpineol,verbenone,bomyl acetate,cedrol,a-pinene,myrtenal,terpinyl acetate and longifolene)were selected from the compounds identified by two methods for olfactory behavior test and antennal electrophysiology test of C.formosanus.The results showed that longifolene,cedrol,verbenone and myrtenal had attracting effects on C.formosanus,bomyl acetate and a-terpineol had an avoidance effect on C.formosanus,the tendency effects of a-pinene and terpinyl acetate were not obvious on C.formosanus.Olfactory behavior test and antennal electrophysiology test showed that different concentrations of compounds had different attracting effects on C.formosanus,Longifolene had the best attracting effect at 0.10 mg/mL,cedrol had the best attracting effect at 10.00 mg/mL,verbenone had the best attracting effect at 1.00 mg/mL,myrtenal had the best attracting effect at 1.00 mg/mL.In addition,the mixed compounds that are attractive to C.formosanus are composed of a single compound with attractive effect.However,compared with single compound,mixed compound has different attracting effect on C.formosanus.Among the six compounds tested,the attraction effect of the mixture of verbenone and longifolene and the mixture of longifolene and cedrol were stronger than that of the single compound.The attraction effect of the mixture of verbenone and myrtenal and the mixture of verbenone and cedrol and the mixture of myrtenal and cedrol are similar to that of single compound.The attraction effect of the mixture of longifolene and myrtenal was slightly lower than that of the single compound.