Behavioral responses for evaluating the attractiveness of specific tea shoot volatiles to the tea green leafhopper, Empoaca vitis

The tea green leafhopper, Empoasca vitis Gothe, is one of the most serious insect pests of tea plantations in China's Mainland. Over the past decades, this pest has been controlled mainly by spraying pesticides. Insecticide applications not only have become less effective in controlling damage, but even more seriously, have caused high levels of toxic residues in teas, which ultimately threatens human health. Therefore, we should seek a safer biological control approach. In the present study, key components of tea shoot volatiles were identified and behaviorally tested as potential leafhopper attractants. The following 13 volatile compounds were identified from aeration samples of tea shoots using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry （GC-MS）： （E）-2-hexenal, （Z）-3-hexen-1- ol, （Z）-3-hexenyl acetate, 2-ethyl-1-hexanol, （E）-ocimene, linalool, nonanol, （Z）-butanoic acid, 3-hexenyl ester, decanal, tetradecane, β-caryophyllene, geraniol and hexadecane. In Y-tube olfactometer tests, the following individual compounds were identified： （E）-2- hexenal, （E）-ocimene, （Z）-3-hexenyl acetate and linalool, as well as two synthetic mixtures （called blend 1 and blend 2） elicited significant taxis, with blend 2 being the most attractive. Blend 1 included linalool, （Z）-3-hexen-l-ol and （E）-2-hexenal at a 1： 1：1 ratio, whereas blend 2 was a mixture of eight compounds at the same loading ratio： （E）-2-hexenal, （Z）- 3-hexen-l-ol, （Z）-3-hexenyl acetate, 2-penten-l-ol, （E）-2-pentenal, pentanol, hexanol and 1-penten-3-ol. In tea fields, the bud-green sticky board traps baited with blend 2, （E）-2- hexenal or hexane captured adults and nymphs of the leafhoppers, with blend 2 being the most attractive, foUowed by （E）-2-hexenal and hexane. Placing sticky traps baited with blend 2 or （E）-2-hexenal in the tea fields significantly reduced leathopper populations. Our results indicate that the bud-green sticky traps baited with tea shoot volatiles can provide a new tool for monitoring and managing the tea leafhopper.

Language of plants: Where is the word?

Plants emit biogenic volatile organic compounds（BVOCs） causing transcriptomic, metabolomic and behavioral responses in receiver organisms. Volatiles involved in such responses are often called ＂plant language＂. Arthropods having sensitive chemoreceptors can recognize language released by plants. Insect herbivores, pollinators and natural enemies respond to composition of volatiles from plants with specialized receptors responding to different types of compounds. In contrast, the mechanism of how plants＂hear＂ volatiles has remained obscured. In a plant-plant communication, several individually emitted compounds are known to prime defense response in receiver plants with a specific manner according to the chemical structure of each volatile compound. Further, composition and ratio of volatile compounds in the plant-released plume is important in plantinsect and plant-plant interactions mediated by plant volatiles. Studies on volatile-mediated plant-plant signaling indicate that the signaling distances are rather short, usually not longer than one meter. Volatile communication from plants to insects such as pollinators could be across distances of hundreds of meters. As many of the herbivore induced VOCs have rather short atmospheric life times, we suggest that in long-distant communications with plant volatiles,reaction products in the original emitted compounds may have additional information value of the distance to emission source together with the original plant-emitted compounds.