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Identification of a New Blend of Host Fruit Volatiles from Red Downy Hawthorn, Crataegus mollis, Attractive to Rhagoletis pomonella Flies from the Northeastern United States

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Abstract

A new blend of volatiles was identified for the fruit of downy red hawthorn, Crataegus mollis, that is attractive to Rhagoletis pomonella flies infesting this host in the northeastern USA. The new blend was as attractive as the previously identified mixture but is more complex in the number of odorants (six in the old versus ten in the new) and differs significantly in the ratio of three volatiles, 3-methylbutan-1-ol, butyl hexanoate, and dihydro-β-ionone, that are common to both blends and exerted agonist or antagonist effects on behavior in a flight tunnel assay. However, behavioral results with the old and new northern hawthorn blends, as well as modified blends with substituted ratios of 3-methylbutan-1-ol, butyl hexanoate, dihydro-β-ionone, indicated that the ‘agonist’ or ‘antagonist’ effects of these volatiles depended on the ratio, or balance of compounds within the blend. In addition, the new blend contains a number of esters identified from the headspace of domesticated apple, Malus domestica, that are attractive to apple-origin R. pomonella, and present in the five other blends from southern hawthorns, including the southern C. mollis var. texana blend, but are not part of the previously identified blend from northern C. mollis fruit. This finding supports the hypothesis that in addition to providing specificity to the odor blends of the northern and southern hawthorn populations, the presence of the significant amounts of ester compounds in the new northern hawthorn blend might have provided a source of standing variation that could help explain the shift in host preference by C. mollis-infesting flies to introduced apple in the mid-1800’s.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Callie Musto, Kathy Poole, and Paula Fox for maintaining the flies received from the University of Notre Dame. We also thank Shannon Olsson, Cheyenne Tait, and two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments. This work was supported in part by grants to JLF and CEL from NSF (#0614378) and the USDA.

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Author notes

  1. Dong H. Cha

    Present address: US Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center, USDA-ARS, Hilo, HI, 96720, USA

  2. Thomas H. Q. Powell

    Present address: Department of Biological Sciences, Binghamton University - State University of New York, Binghamton, NY, 13902, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Entomology, NYS Agricultural Experiment Station, Cornell University, Geneva, NY, 14456, USA

    Dong H. Cha & Charles E. Linn Jr

  2. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, 46656, USA

    Thomas H. Q. Powell & Jeffrey L. Feder

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  1. Dong H. Cha
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Correspondence to Dong H. Cha.

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Cha, D.H., Powell, T.H.Q., Feder, J.L. et al. Identification of a New Blend of Host Fruit Volatiles from Red Downy Hawthorn, Crataegus mollis, Attractive to Rhagoletis pomonella Flies from the Northeastern United States. J Chem Ecol 44, 671–680 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-018-0977-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-018-0977-6

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