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Poster Display

Plant-Insect Ecosystems

Poster: P-IE, Behavior and Chemical Ecology

Combination of aggregation pheromones with kairomones for management of chrysomelid vegetable pests

Tuesday, November 11, 2025
9:00 AM - 5:00 PM Pacific
Location: Exhibit Hall A-A1, OCC
Poster Display
Chrysomelid leaf beetles often use male-produced aggregation pheromones (attractive to males and females) to colonize hosts, including crops. Some important pests’ aggregation pheromones are already known and synthesized. These include Colorado potato beetle, cucumber beetles, and crucifer flea beetles (Phyllotreta spp.).

Availability of synthetic pheromones offers opportunities to develop behavioral control as an important tactic in vegetable IPM, while reducing pesticide applications and negative non-target effects in pest management. Tactics that are promising include monitoring, "supercharged" trap cropping, mass-trapping, attract-and-kill baiting, and push-pull systems.

Kairomones, including plant-and insect-produced attractants, are often less expensive, in some cases add to or even synergize pheromone-based attraction. Our field results suggest that pheromone-kairomone combinations offer more economical, efficient, selective, and sustainable tools to integrate behavioral control with semiochemicals into vegetable pest management for these and other key pests.