Raspberry Ketone Trifluoroacetate, a New Attractant for the Queensland Fruit Fly, Bactrocera Tryoni (Froggatt)

Abstract

Queensland fruit fly, Bactrocera tryoni (Q-fly), is a major pest of horticultural crops in eastern Australia. Lures that attract male Q-fly are important for detection of incursions and outbreaks, monitoring of populations, and control by mass trapping and male annihilation. Cuelure, an analog of naturally occurring raspberry ketone, is the standard Q-fly lure, but it has limited efficacy compared with lures that are available for some other fruit flies such as methyl eugenol for B. dorsalis. Melolure is a more recently developed raspberry ketone analog that has shown better attraction than cuelure in some field studies but not in others. A novel fluorinated analog of raspberry ketone, raspberry ketone trifluoroacetate (RKTA), has been developed as a potential improvement on cuelure and melolure. RKTA placed on laboratory cages containing 2-week-old Q-flies elicited strong behavioral responses from males. Quantification of Q-fly responses in these cages, using digital images to estimate numbers of flies aggregated near different lures, showed RKTA attracted and arrested significantly more flies than did cuelure or melolure. RKTA shows good potential as a new lure for improved surveillance and control of Q-fly.

Raspberry Ketone Analogs: Vapour Pressure Measurements and Attractiveness to Queensland Fruit Fly, Bactrocera tryoni (Froggatt) (Diptera: Tephritidae)

“…Male flies were tested when they were 12–13 days old [ 33 , 34 ] and sorted into experimental cages (30 × 30 × 90 cm) one day before experiments. The experimental cages were modified from a previous design [ 35 – 37 ] to provide better images of flies attracted to a compound. The ceiling of each cage was made of white mesh.…”

“…Attraction studies followed the methods of previous studies [ 35 , 38 ]. One hundred male Q-flies were transferred to each cage and provided water and food as described in the Bioassay General Procedure until testing.…”

Raspberry ketone supplement promotes early sexual maturation in male Queensland fruit fly, Bactrocera tryoni (Diptera: Tephritidae)

“…These compounds, and their synthetic analogues (e.g. ‘cuelure’, a more volatile synthetic analogue of RK) have been exploited widely as lures for border and port of entry detection, population monitoring, and lure‐and‐kill approaches in pest management programmes . Looking beyond development of lures, over the past 20 years researchers have increasingly sought to understand the biological basis of Bactrocera responses to phytochemicals.…”

Semiochemical mediated enhancement of males to complement sterile insect technique in management of the tephritid pest Bactrocera tryoni (Froggatt)

“…Studies of several Bactrocera species show that pre-release exposure of males to plant-derived semiochemicals and synthetic lures dramatically reduces their subsequent response to attractant lures used in MAT 20 , 21 . Several commercially available lures and other male attractants are known for B. tryoni , including cue-lure, melolure, raspberry ketone (RK), RK formate, RK trifluoroacetate, and zingerone, which are all structurally similar 11 , 15 , 22 – 25 . While RK and zingerone are naturally occurring, cue-lure, RK formate, and RK trifluoroacetate are synthetic analogues of RK 26 .…”