Summary:
The olive fruit fly, scientifically named as Bactrocera oleae, has been for years the biggest enemy of wild and cultivated olive trees, with a global distribution. The larva feeds entirely on the olive fruit itself, resulting in the destruction of production and the degradation of products. To this end, many attempts have been made to control populations in a variety of ways such as the use of pesticides, the use of bait traps, the introduction of insect predators and other biological methods. These methods have not been so effective in most cases, which makes it necessary to find a new control technique more effective and environmentally friendly. B. oleae insects use for their basic functions, such as reproduction and mating, their senses and olfactory system. Through sensory organs, they detect chemicals, known as sex pheromones, that are emitted by each sex to attract the opposite sex.
The sensory organs have a number of olfactory receptors belonging to two large families, which encode chemical stimuli and send information to the brain in the form of an electrical signal. With the method of electroantennography, it is possible to determine the semi-quantitative response of insects to a variety of such odors. In the present study, wild and laboratory insects were tested for their response to the major pheromones that appear to be involved in mating. In addition, insects that had been exposed to a pheromone for some time were tested with the molecular method of Real Time PCR for the expression of Drosophila melanogaster homologous olfactory receptors (317, 330, 520).
Keywords:
Bactrocera oleae, Pheromones, Electrophysiology, Electroantennogram, EAG, Olfaction
