Grant: Strategic Projects - Group

Insect pests, such as the cabbage looper or the spruce budworm (both moths), cause significant damage to crop and forests, respectively. Further, some pest insects transmit diseases to humans (e. g. malaria mosquitoes) or to plants (e. g. bark beetles). Control measures include insecticide treatments, which are effective only if the majority of insects in the target population are susceptible to the insecticide. A major problem we face today is the increasing resistance of insects to insecticides. Pressure for intensive production of agricultural and forestry products will increase dramatically in the coming decades. In addition to food, fibres, building materials and pulp, the demand for fuel and chemical building blocks will increasingly be satisfied by products coming from fields, greenhouses and forests. This will bring with it a pressing need to develop sustainable, effective, long-term insect control measures. In this application we propose to research sustainable alternatives to insecticides: deterrents and chemosensory inhibitors. Insects decide where to feed, lay eggs and when to reproduce using chemical cues from the environment (general odorants or tastes) and from members of their own species (pheromones). We propose to discover and develop compounds that mimic either general odorants/tastes or pheromones and inhibit the insect's response to the natural cues. We will focus on the behaviour of the insect that causes crop damage or disease transmission. The target insects for our study are: cabbage looper, gypsy moth, spruce budworm, the pine engraver (a bark beetle) and the malaria mosquito. We will design and synthesize the compounds and test them against the insects to find candidates that deter the insects and/or mask the natural cues that elicit feeding, egg-laying or reproductive behaviours in target insects. The novelty of this proposal lies in our idea of developing insect control agents that are not toxic but that prevent the crop/forest-damaging behaviour. We anticipate that such compounds will become important tools in integrated pest management schemes.