Pheromones arthropods

One may wonder why lobsters appear to use urine as a dispersal solvent for chemical signals, whereas terrestrial arthropods such as the well-studied insects use direct release of gland products into the air. Perhaps the answer is that small animals in air (such as insects) are always in danger of desiccation. By contrast, marine lobsters and crabs are relatively large and may experience only minor water loss problems due to osmosis. Thus, it may not be difficult for a 500-g lobster to store 10 ml of urine and release it during a dominance battle at a rate of up to 1 ml/min (27). The advantage of urine-carried pheromones is that the dispersal mechanism already exists urine is injected into the gill current, which in turn injects into ocean currents. 

Females of the desert spider Agenelopsis aperta emit a volatile pheromone that attracts conspecihc males (Riechert and Singer, 1995). This pheromone was identified as 8-methyl-2-nonanone (1 Fig. 4.1), a previously unknown arthropod semio-chemical. It was found by headspace analysis and abdominal washings of females 2 weeks after their hnal molt, when they become sexually receptive it was absent in females of other age classes. The pheromone attracted males in a three-choice arena system at doses as low as 500 ng (Papke et al., 2001). Another female-specific ketone, 6-methyl-3-heptanone (2), was not attractive. Very low doses of 1 (10-9 mg/ml applied to a hlter paper placed in empty juvenile female webs) also induced courtship behavior in males (Papke et al., 2001). The normal behavioral sequence was followed, except for phases which required input from the female. The ED50 value (mean effective dose) of 1 was 5.5x 10-4 mg/ml hexane. In contrast, ketone 2 only induced a response in some males at unnaturally high concentrations... 

Humans and other wildlife are exposed to arthropod pheromones from natural sources throughout their lifetimes without any known adverse effects. Whenever environmental conditions permit, which is fairly often, adult arthropods of all species... 

In addition to the extremely low application rates, arthropod pheromones are extremely volatile, are subject to rapid environmental degradation, and are metabolized by enzyme systems present in most living organisms [39, 43]. Most of the USE P -registered products in the U S A are arthropod pheromones and, of those, the majority are straight-chain lepidopteran (butterfly and moth) pheromones (SCLPs). 

USEPA (2009) 40 CFR 180.1124. Arthropod Pheromones Exemption from the Requirement of a Tolerance. Code of Federal Regulations 40 Parts 150 to 189. Revised as of 1 July 2009. 

Raina A. K., Wergin W. P., Murphy A. C. and Erbe E. F. (2000) Structural organization of the sex pheromone gland in Helicoverpa zea in relation to pheromone production and release. Arthropod Struct. Develop. 29, 343-353. 

Fonagy A., Yokoyama N. and Matsumoto S. (2001) Physiological status and change of cytoplasmic lipid droplets in the pheromone-producing cells of the silkmoth, Bombyx mori (Lepidoptera, Bombycidae). Arthropod Struct. Dev. 30, 113-123. 

Kim J.-Y. and Leal W. S. (2000) Ultrastructure of pheromone-detecting sensillum placodeum of the Japanse beetle, Popillia japonica Newmann (Coleoptera Scarabaeidae). Arthropod Struct. Dev. 29, 121-128. 

One of the best documented examples of aggressive non-social arthropod mimicry is that of bolas spiders that use the female sex pheromones of their lepidopteran hosts, mostly noctuids, to attract moth males. In their study on the moth Tetanolita mynesalis, i.e., the... 

Many of the compounds that constitute chemical signals in the world of insects contain chiral centers, and it now seems evident that a variety of insects can discriminate these enantiomers with great olfactory precision. Insects are exposed to a multitude of enantiomeric plant natural products, but in addition, these animals synthesize a variety of pheromones with centers of chirality. Obviously, it would be highly adaptive for these arthropods to both exhibit great olfactory acuity in the presence of floral enantiomers and great sensitivity to their own optically active pheromones. It appears that this is precisely the case. 

The Cyphophthalmi of the genera Cyphophthalmus and Siro revealed more than 20 compounds including saturated and unsaturated Cn-C15-methyl ketones, for example, tridecan-2-one (67), four naphthoquinones (especially 1,4-naphthoquinone (53), 6-methyl-1,4-naphthoquinone (52), 4-chloro-1,2-naphthoquinone (51) and its 6-methyl analogue), and acetophenone (50).133 Chlorinated exocrine compounds of arthropods seem to be particularly unusual, apart from chlorophenol, a sex pheromone of ticks.133 As a whole, Cyphophthalmi are chemically more similar to Palpatores than to Laniatores. 

OECD (2000b). Data Requirements Report of the OECD Workshop on Common Core Data Requirements for Pheromones and Other Arthropod Semiochemicals, ENV/JM/PEST(2000)4, OECD, Paris, France. 

OECD (2001). Guidance for Registration Requirements for Pheromones and Other Semiochemicals Used for Arthropod Pest Control, ENV/JM/MONO(2001)12, Environment Directorate, OECD, Paris, France. 

Guidance for Registration Requirements for Pheromones and Other Semiochemicals Used for Arthropod Pest Control (2002). 

Alioto TS, Ngai J (2005) The odorant receptor repertoire of teleost fish. BMC Genomics 6 173 Anton S et al (2003) Central projections of olfactory receptor neurons from single antennal and palpal sensilla in mosquitoes. Arthropod Struct Dev 32 319-327 Bartelt RJ et al (1985) cis-Vaccenyl acetate as an aggregation pheromone in Drosophila mela-nogaster. J Chem Ecol 11 1747-1756... 

---