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Michele Preti
PhD student (Nov. 2017 - )
michele.preti@natec.unibz.it
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Title "New strategies in organic pest insect
control by the characterization of bioactive plant
volatile organic compounds of agricultural crops"
My PhD project will aim to collect, identify, quantify and
verify the ecological activity of volatile organic compounds
(VOCs) emitted by the main fruit crops (such as grapevine,
pome and stone fruits) in response to insect damage
(Herbivore-Induced Plant Volatiles, HIPVs) in order to use
these compounds in insect pests monitoring and control. In
fact, HIPVs can play a key role in mediating multitrophic
plant-insect interactions: they can allow to improve the
monitoring system catching also female individuals and under
mating disruption, where the standard sex pheromone lures do
not perform properly to track the insect flight, or they
could be used to evaluate the presence of natural enemies in
the agroecosystem. The VOCs originated by undamaged and
insect-damaged plants (for example caused by tortricid
pests) will be collected adopting techniques such as
headspace sampling as closed-loop-stripping-analysis (CLSA),
solid phase micro extraction (SPME) and direct headspace
(DHS) and characterized by gas chromatography-mass
spectrometry (GC-MS) or monitored in real-time by proton
transfer reaction - time of flight - mass spectrometry
(PTRToF-MS). Their bioactivity will be then investigated
with behavioural tests using techniques such as gas
chromatography-electroantennographic detection (GC-EAD) and
flight tunnel. Finally, open field trials of lures
comparison will be performed in order to contribute to the
characterization of volatiles blends useful for future
strategies in integrated pest management (IPM). Combined
volatiles lures will be tested in commercial orchards with
standard traps and with electronic trapping system, which
allows the computer identification of the insects and the
remote check of the catches, bringing such informatics
technologies in the field experiments. In fact, part of the
project is aimed to contribute in the development of an
electronic trap with a camera in order to put together the
computer image analysis of the insect catches and the new
discoveries of chemical ecology (i.e. new lures with
kairomones). In particular the main focus of my research
will aim to the following insect-crop combinations: Lobesia
botrana – grapevine; Cydia pomonella
– apple; Grapholita molesta – peach. This
project will contribute to the development of new
sustainable and innovative tools for insect pest control.
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