Trail Pheromone Disruption of Argentine Ant Trail Formation and Foraging

Suckling, D. M.; Peck, Robert W.; Stringer, Lloyd D.; Snook, Kirsten; Banko, Paul C.

doi:10.1007/s10886-009-9734-1

Cited by 33 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Furthermore, short-term (4-d) treatment with polyethylene tube dispensers containing synthetic Z9 Ð16:Ald over a 100-m 2 Þeld largely suppressed worker recruitment to baits (Tanaka et al 2009). Similar results were reported independently with Argentine ants in a natural ecosystem in Hawaii by using synthetic Z9 Ð16:Ald formulated as short-life pheromone carriers (Suckling et al 2008(Suckling et al , 2010. Based on these data, we expected that a long-term treatment with synthetic trail pheromone would make Argentine ants run short of food and, therefore, decrease their density.…”

supporting

confidence: 84%

Long-Term Field Trial to Control the Invasive Argentine Ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) With Synthetic Trail Pheromone

Nishisue¹,

Sunamura²,

Tanaka³

et al. 2010

jnl. econ. entom.

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Previous short-term experiments showed that trail following behavior of the Argentine ant, Linepithema humile (Mayr) (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), can be disrupted by a high concentration of synthetic trail pheromone component (Z)-9-hexadecenal. In this study, a long-term field trial was conducted in 100-m2 plots of house gardens in an urban area of Japan to see whether the control effect on Argentine ants can be obtained by permeating synthetic trail pheromone from dispensers. The dispensers were placed in the experimental plots during the ant's active season (April-November) for 2 yr with monthly renewal. To estimate Argentine ant population density, foraging activity of Argentine ants in the study plots was monitored by monthly bait surveys. Throughout the study period, Argentine ant foraging activity was suppressed in the presence of the dispensers, presumably via trail forming inhibition. In contrast, the level of foraging activity was not different between treatment and no-treatment plots when the dispensers were temporarily removed, suggesting that treatment with pheromone dispensers did not suppress Argentine ant density in the treatment plots. Population decline may be expected with larger-scale treatment that covers a significant portion of the ant colony or with improvement in the potency of the disruptant.

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supporting

confidence: 84%

Long-Term Field Trial to Control the Invasive Argentine Ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) With Synthetic Trail Pheromone

Nishisue¹,

Sunamura²,

Tanaka³

et al. 2010

jnl. econ. entom.

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“…comm.). A single point source can be used for demonstration of disruption of the nearest trails (Tatsuki et al 2005;Suckling et al 2008), although demonstration of sustained nest level effects is needed (Suckling et al 2010). The potential to use trail disruption as a management tool or in some circumstances, eradication, against fire ants is a worthy goal, but will require suitable technology to release Z,E-α-farnesene or other compounds at an effective rate and cost.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Trail pheromone disruption that affects recruitment is an example of a novel tactic for ant pest management. The Argentine ant (Linepithema humile) trail pheromone, Z-9-hexadecenal (Cavill et al 1979), is being examined for disruption of trails by using either polyethylene tubing dispensers (Tatsuki et al 2005;Tanaka et al 2009) or widely dispersed point sources of pheromone (Suckling et al 2008(Suckling et al , 2010. This compound also is a moth pheromone (El-Sayed 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Measurement of trail disruption was achieved by assessing trail linearity as measured by the square of the linear correlation coefficient (r 2 ) (Suckling et al 2008). The disruption concept was extended successfully to the field by using widely-dispersed wax-covered sand laden with the pheromone (Suckling et al 2008) and formulated as sprayable microencapsulated particles (Suckling et al 2010). Treatment achieved up to 90% disruption of visible Argentine ant trails for two weeks in 400 m 2 plots under hot and windy conditions in Hawaii's Volcanoes National Park (Suckling et al 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The ants are sensitive to Z, E-α-farnesene trails as low as fg/cm levels. Laboratory trials were the first step in assessment of the potential for developing trail pheromone disruption against the Argentine ant (Suckling et al 2008), before more expensive field trials (Suckling et al 2010). Since behavioral responses to synthetic chemically-based disruption are concentrationdependent, we considered that it was sufficient to record statistical significance with the phenomenon in the laboratory as a first step before formulation development.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Trail Pheromone Disruption of Red Imported Fire Ant

et al. 2010

Self Cite

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The fire ant, Solenopsis invicta (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), is considered one of the most aggressive and invasive species in the world. Toxic bait systems are used widely for control, but they also affect non-target ant species and cannot be used in sensitive ecosystems such as organic farms and national parks. The fire ant uses recruitment pheromones to organize the retrieval of large food resources back to the colony, with Z,E-alpha-farnesene responsible for the orientation of workers along trails. We prepared Z,E-alpha-farnesene, (91% purity) from extracted E,E-alpha-farnesene and demonstrated disruption of worker trail orientation after presentation of an oversupply of this compound from filter paper point sources (30 microg). Trails were established between queen-right colony cells and food sources in plastic tubs. Trail-following behavior was recorded by overhead webcam, and ants were digitized before and after presentation of the treatment, using two software approaches. The linear regression statistic, r(2) was calculated. Ants initially showed high linear trail integrity (r(2) = 0.75). Within seconds of presentation of the Z,E-alpha-farnesene treatment, the trailing ants showed little or no further evidence of trail following behavior in the vicinity of the pheromone source. These results show that trailing fire ants become disorientated in the presence of large amounts of Z,E-alpha-farnesene. Disrupting fire ant recruitment to resources may have a negative effect on colony size or other effects yet to be determined. This phenomenon was demonstrated recently for the Argentine ant, where trails were disrupted for two weeks by using their formulated trail pheromone, Z-9-hexadecenal. Further research is needed to establish the long term effects and control potential for trail disruption in S. invicta.

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Protic Ionic Liquids with Unusually High Dielectric Permittivities

Huang

Weingärtner

2008

ChemPhysChem

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The use of ionic liquids (ILs) as alternatives to common molecular solvents is rapidly expanding.[1] For assessing their solvent behavior, the polarity is of key interest. [2][3][4] Polarity describes the solvation capability, but different experiments probe different facets. A key quantity for gauging the polarity is the relative dielectric permittivity, e S ('dielectric constant'). The electrical conductivity of ILs renders conventional measurements of e S impossible, but microwave dielectric spectroscopy [5][6][7][8][9][10] allows to separate the dielectric and conductive responses, which enables the determination of e S . The results for widely used ILs, mainly 1,3-dialkylimidazolium salts, indicate remarkable features. First, the values of e S = 10-15 at 25 8C vary little compared to the wide range of values covered by molecular solvents. This insensitivity to the chemical nature of the ions contrasts the behavior of many other properties of ILs, which can be varied over wide ranges. Second, e S is substantially lower than observed for common polar solvents, which contradicts the expectation that a charged system forms an environment of high polarity. One can think of many scenarios where ILs of higher dielectric constant are desirable.There is the pressing question to which extent these features are generic for ILs. In molecular liquids, high dielectric constants are often found in hydrogen-bonded structures, where strong orientational correlations between dipoles can enhance dielectric polarization. [11,12] It seems therefore worthwhile to study the dielectric behavior of "protic ionic liquids". Protic ILs are formed by a combination of a Brønsted acid and a Brønsted base. Their properties and applications have recently been reviewed.[13] A well-known representative is ethylammonium nitrate, [14] which can form an extended hydrogenbonded network.[13] Its dielectric constant of e S = 26.2 at 25 8C [5] is indeed higher than those of common aprotic ILs. A high polarity of protic ILs is also indicated by other probes, for example based on solvatochromic shifts.[13]For conductive liquids, measurement of e S resorts to the determination of the frequency-dependent dielectric dispersion curve e 0 ðnÞ in the microwave regime, here 30 MHz n 20 GHz, where the dielectric response can be separated from the conductance response.[6] e S is given by the zero-frequency limit of the dispersion curve [Eq. (1)]Although the electrical conductance imposes a low-frequency limit for useful experiments, the optimized experiments [6] cover a sufficiently large segment of e 0 ðnÞ for an accurate extrapolation of e S by fits to well-established target functions. [5][6][7][8][9][10][11] Figure 1 shows dispersion curves for two representative proticILs. Table 1 lists e S values for six protic ILs. The results vitiate the impression from earlier studies that dielectric constants fall into a narrow range of fairly low values. Obviously, the hydrogen-bonded structure of a protic IL enhances the dielectric polarization. For the alkylammoni...

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Trail Pheromone Disruption of Argentine Ant Trail Formation and Foraging

Cited by 33 publications

References 30 publications

Long-Term Field Trial to Control the Invasive Argentine Ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) With Synthetic Trail Pheromone

Long-Term Field Trial to Control the Invasive Argentine Ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) With Synthetic Trail Pheromone

Trail Pheromone Disruption of Red Imported Fire Ant

Protic Ionic Liquids with Unusually High Dielectric Permittivities

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