- About this Journal
- Abstracting and Indexing
- Aims and Scope
- Article Processing Charges
- Articles in Press
- Author Guidelines
- Bibliographic Information
- Citations to this Journal
- Contact Information
- Editorial Board
- Editorial Workflow
- Free eTOC Alerts
- Publication Ethics
- Reviewers Acknowledgment
- Submit a Manuscript
- Subscription Information
- Table of Contents
International Journal of Ecology
Volume 2012 (2012), Article ID 653869, 6 pages
doi:10.1155/2012/653869
Response of a Predatory Insect, Chrysopa sinica, toward the Volatiles of Persimmon Trees Infested with the Herbivore, Japanese Wax Scale
College of Life Science, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030006, China
Received 31 July 2011; Revised 15 December 2011; Accepted 8 February 2012
Academic Editor: Andrew Sih
Copyright © 2012 Yanfeng Zhang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
A predatory insect, Chrysopa sinica Tiedet (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae), and its taxis behavior were investigated in a tritrophic system that included a herbivore, Ceroplastes japonicus Green (Hemiptera: Coccidae), and a host plant, persimmon tree, Diospyros kaki L. (Ebenaceae). The results showed that this predator was attracted to the volatile compounds of persimmon trees that were infested with C. japonicus; however, the attraction varied with the growth season of the trees and the development stage of the wax scale. The strongest attraction occurred in the autumn and not in the late spring or summer. For the four time periods considered throughout the day, the most significant attraction rates were found at midnight and the early afternoon. The results indicated that the transformation of the chemical compositions of the volatiles of the persimmon tree might drive the taxis response of the predator in the three studied seasons. We mainly found differences in terpenoid emissions and propose that these compounds play a key part in the observed differences in attractiveness.