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Irene Castellan
PhD student (Nov. 2017 - )
Irene.Castellan2@unibz.it
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Title "An innovative management approach for
spotted wing drosophila (Drosophila suzukii)
using an environmentally friendly attract and kill
formulation"
The management of pest insects in the field is an ongoing
challenge for agriculture. This challenge becomes even more
complex when we have to deal with an invasive pest insect
causing increasing damages to local crops. This is the case
of Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura) (Diptera:
Drosophilidae), an invasive fruit fly species arrived in
Italy in 2008 from South East Asia, which is threatening
fruit farming and viticulture. The peculiarity of this
drosophila species lies in its attack modality: females have
a pronged, serrated ovipositor that can lay eggs inside the
fruit piercing the soft skin surface. The damage indeed, is
already visible before the harvest and this makes it
difficult to respect pre-harvest intervals with chemical
agents. Physical measures are promising (e.g.
anti-insect nets), but costly and not always viable. That is
why we must rely on a different approach to tackle the
problems caused by spotted-wing drosophila (SWD). Chemical
ecology approaches allow to resort to instruments that may
modify the insect’s behaviour in the field, therefore
permitting to improve the control and preventive measures.
The aim is to utilize a strategy that will reduce or
eliminate the residues of chemical insecticides on the
fruits, making the method sustainable. We decided to target
yeast volatiles and test their effects on SWD, as they are
already known to be interacting with drosophila species in
many cases. My PhD research will focus on the chemical
ecology of SWD in relation to fruit-yeast volatiles. The
main methods utilized are based on headspace analyses to
trap the volatile compounds (e.g. direct headspace, CLSA and
SPME) and gas chromatography to get deep into the volatile
profile characterisation (GC-MS). After this first step, I
will investigate how volatiles emitted from yeasts could
influence the behaviour of D. suzukii. To
accomplish this, the advanced technique of
electroantennography will be utilized to test the insects
exposing their antennae to the selected volatiles (EAG and
GC-EAD). The ultimate aim will be to find a right blend of
volatiles to create a formulation potentially applicable in
the field to keep the pest presence under control without
the use of insecticides. The project will be done in
collaboration with Laimburg Research Centre and other
national and international institutions.
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