Skip to main content
ARS Home » Midwest Area » Peoria, Illinois » National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research » Crop Bioprotection Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #133237
Title: PHEROMONE COMPONENTS FROM THE WEATHERING OF CUTICULAR LIPIDS

Author
item Bartelt, Robert

Submitted to: National Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/20/2002
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Cuticular lipids containing carbon-carbon double bonds are extremely common in insects; major examples are alkene and alkadiene hydrocarbons. Such compounds oxidize and break down slowly under typical field conditions. One important reaction is cleavage at a double bond to release aldehydes. Thus, heavy, essentially non-volatile cuticular lipids can release smaller, volatile products into the air as the lipids weather. These volatile products sometimes serve as long-range pheromone components, and three examples of this situation from the Hymenoptera will be reviewed.