Evolution bark beetles

Cates, Rex G. Alexander, H. J. In "Bark Beetles In North American Conifers Ecology and Evolution" J. Mltton and K. Sturgeon, (Eds.) University of Texas Press Austin, Texas, In press. 

Using deuterium labelling techniques Hendry et al. (1980) demonstrated that ipsenol (26) and ipsdienol (27) — the pheromones of the bark beetle Ips paraconfusus — are formed in the males from myrcene (28), a constituent of its host plant Pinus ponderosa. Their finding suggests that the evolution of host plant... 

STURGEON, K.B., MITTON, J.B. Evolution of bark beetle communities, in Bark Beetle Communities A System for the Study of Evolutionary Biology (J.B.Mitton, K.B. Sturgeon, eds.) University of Texas Press, Austin TX, 1982, pp. 350-384. 

Ecosystem impacts landscape ecology of bark beetles Anticipated responses of bark beetles to global atmospheric change Evolution... 

Symonds MRE, Elgar MA (2004) The mode of pheromone evolution evidence from bark beetles. Proc Biol Sci 271 839-846... 

During the evolution of bark beetles, their hosts and associated fungi, parasites, predators and organisms, the composition of bark beetle pheromones will probably have been modified as other species evolved responses to components of the pheromone and exerted selection pressures on the beetle population. There is only circumstantial evidence that this might have happened. For example, in the experiments on widely separated populations of 7. pini (Lanier et al., 1972), California beetles attracted more local 7. pini than did New York beetles, and vice versa in New York. However, New York beetles in California attracted far more of the local predator E. lecontei than did the local 7. pini. California and New York 7. pini use different ratios of the enantiomers of ipsdienol as their pheromones. The high resolution of (-)ipsdienol in California populations versus the blend in New York supports the idea of coevolution of chemical systems of predator and prey production of and response to (+ )ipsdienol being eliminated in California by a predator which had evolved specific responses to it. Perhaps in the absence of E. lecontei in New York there was no pressure to resolve the blend. 

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