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What is Pheromone Trap?
What do you think when you hear the word “pheromone”?
Here is an explanation on how the pheromone trap and its feature works.
Features of pheromone trap
What is pheromone trap?
Insects communicate with their peers (same species) by releasing chemical substances called pheromones from their body.
We, at FUJI FLAVOR are continuously researching about “pheromone” on a daily basis.
Monitoring with pheromones
We are studying insect pheromones so they can be used for monitoring.
Monitoring, in general means, “checking the population of insect”. Pheromone trap is a tool which helps us to understand the exact number of insects present in a certain place.
Pheromones that attract insects
Pheromones, the “words” of insects, are of many kinds, with various meanings.Those that attract insects are sex pheromones and aggregation pheromones. For this reason, these two pheromones are used for monitoring.
Sex pheromones and aggregation pheromones
Sex pheromones or aggregation pheromones are used in monitoring. Even though both kinds of pheromones attract insects, the meaning and effects of sex pheromones and aggregation pheromones are different. Among stored product pests (insects that damage stored foods including grains and their processed products), for example, sex pheromones are used as “language” by groups of flying insects, while aggregation pheromones are used as language by groups of crawling insects. The following are some of the differences between these two groups.
| Stored grain insects group | Type of “language” used | Do the adults eat? | How long is their adult life-span? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flying stored grain insects | Sex pheromones | NO | Short |
| Crawling stored grain insects | Aggregation pheromones | YES | Long |
Aggregation pheromones tend to have weaker attraction than sex pheromones, for the most part. This relates to the differences in life patterns in the table above. Short-lived flying stored grain insect need to find partners to produce offspring during their short life span. This is why they use sex pheromones, with strong attraction to the opposite sex, as “language.”
Effective monitoring using aggregation pheromones
Here is an explanation on how to increase the attractiveness of aggregation pheromone.
Enhance the weak attraction.
When insects search for food, food attractants are used as a guide. By combining aggregation pheromones and food attractants, the weak attraction of aggregation pheromones is amplified.
Insect pheromones are the “language” of insects
We, at FUJI FLAVOR have developed effective pheromone trap based on the understanding that pheromone of insects is the language of insects.
We intend to continue thinking of approaches to monitoring that best use the features of each “word.”