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Updated: Jul 18, 2026

A Wind Tunnel for Odor Mediated Insect Behavioural Assays
Published on: November 30, 2018
Synergism and redundancy in a plant volatile blend attracting grapevine moth females
Marco Tasin1, Anna-Carin Bäckman, Miryan Coracini
1Department of Crop Science, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, 230 53 Alnarp, Sweden.
Abstract:
A flight tunnel study was done to decipher the behavioral effect of grape odor in grapevine moth Lobesia botrana. A blend of 10 volatile compounds, which all elicit a strong antennal response, attracts mated grapevine moth females from a distance, by upwind orientation flight. These 10 grape volatiles are in part behaviorally redundant, since attraction to a 3-component blend of beta-caryophyllene, (E)-beta-farnesene and (E)-4,8-dimethyl-1,3,7-nonatriene was not significantly different from the 10-component blend. Blending these three compounds had a strong synergistic effect on female attraction, and omission of any one compound from this 3-component blend almost abolished attraction. It was nonetheless possible to substitute the three compounds with the other grape volatiles which are perceived by the female antenna, to partly restore attraction. Several blends, of varying composition, elicited significant attraction. The observed behavioral plasticity in response to grape volatile blends probably reflects the variation of the natural plant signal, since females oviposit on different grape varieties, in different phenological stages.
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