Abstract:

It has been showed that females of the pine caterpillar moth, Dendrolimus punctatus mainly use olfactory cues to locate the needle of Pinus massoniana as their oviposition site in an previous study. Oviposition behaviour in this species were further studied by oviposition choice experiments. The removal of pentane extracts from needles of P. massoniana resulted in a significant reduction of oviposition preference to extracted needles than normal ones. Considering our previous study, that pentane extracts of the needles contained volatiles eliciting female electroantennogram respones, present data implied that the volatiles were necessary for female to locate their oviposition site. Comparing with oviposition preferences to pentene-dipping needles, females did not significantly change the preference to the needles dipped with α-pinene, myrcene, limonene, camphor or linalool-pentane solution, respectively. However, females laid significantly less eggs on the needles dipped in 10% β-pinene -pentane solution than those dipped in pentane only. This fact suggested that the needles containing higher amounts of β-pinene could reduce female oviposition perference.

Key words: Dendrolimus punctatus, Oviposition behaviour, Pinus massoniana, Pentane extraction, &beta, -pinene