Attractancy of a Sesquiterpene, β-caryophyllene to Males of the Oriental Fruit Fly, Bactrocera dorsalis (Diptera: Tephritidae)

The recent discovery of a sesquiterpene, β-caryophyllene (CP) as a male attractant of the guava fruit fly, Bactrocera correcta (Bezzi) (Diptera: Tephritidae) prompted investigations into the attractancy of CP to the Oriental fruit fly, B. dorsalis (Hendel). This is because males of both species of fruit flies are attracted to, and feed on a phenylpropanoid compound, methyl eugenol (ME). Although CP was a more potent attractant than ME for B. correcta, it is not known if males of B. dorsalis are also attracted to CP. The possible attraction of B. dorsalis to CP as a sesquiterpene may indicate its wide host range through its attraction to different groups of plant volatiles i.e., phenylpropanoids and sesquiterpenes. In this paper, we report that males of B. dorsalis were also attracted to, and feed on CP. Subsequently, we conducted a probit regression analysis to determine the quantal response of sexually mature male flies that were attracted to CP in cage bioassays. Therefore, as a measure of male B. dorsalis' sensitivity of CP, the median dose of CP required to elicit a positive response in 50% of the tested B. dorsalis population (ED50) was calculated as 3.7 mg. This value was over 10,000x higher than known ED50 of B. dorsalis' male attraction ME (between 171 and 268 ng). We propose that the attraction of male B. dorsalis flies to CP was much weaker than to ME. Further, we suggest that in any fruit fly surveillance and monitoring programme, application of lures must consider the specificity and potency of each compound to target fruit fly species. The probit regression analysis of male fly quantal response to lure offers such information.