| Title: | Identification of giant hornet Vespa mandarinia queen sex pheromone components |
| Author(s): | Dong S; Sun A; Tan K; Nieh JC; |
| Address: | "CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 650000 Kunming, Yunnan, China; Center of Plant Ecology, Core Botanical Gardens, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 666303 Mengla, Yunnan, China. College of Plant Protection, Yunnan Agricultural University, 650201 Kunming, China. CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 650000 Kunming, Yunnan, China; Center of Plant Ecology, Core Botanical Gardens, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 666303 Mengla, Yunnan, China. Electronic address: kentan@xtbg.ac.cn. Division of Biological Sciences, Section of Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA. Electronic address: jnieh@ucsd.edu" |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.cub.2022.01.065 |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 1879-0445 (Electronic) 0960-9822 (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "The Vespidae is a diverse family of wasps and hornets that are formidable predators of insects, including social bees(1), and includes a number of invasive species(2). Recently, the world's largest hornet, Vespa mandarinia Smith (Hymenoptera: Vespidae), which occurs naturally in the Indomalayan region, has been found in Canada and the United States(2). Some simulations indicate that it could rapidly spread throughout Washington and Oregon in the western US, as well as some eastern parts of the country(2)(,)(3), threaten native bees and honeybees, and harm bee-pollinated crop production worth over $100 million annually(3). There is consequently an urgent need to learn more about V. mandarinia's reproductive biology and to develop trapping methods to locate its nests and to control its reproduction. We identified V. mandarinia queen-produced sex pheromone from the 5(th) and 6(th) intersegmental sternal glands of virgin queens. The major active compounds were hexanoic acid, octanoic acid, and decanoic acid. When placed in field traps, the synthetic compounds and a queen-equivalent mixture rapidly attracted hundreds of males but no females or other species" |
| Keywords: | Animals Bees Introduced Species Male Reproduction *Sex Attractants *Wasps; |
| Notes: | "MedlineDong, Shihao Sun, Aili Tan, Ken Nieh, James C eng Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't England 2022/03/16 Curr Biol. 2022 Mar 14; 32(5):R211-R212. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.01.065" |
