engleski

Green Lacewing (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae: Chrysoperla) Attraction to Yeast

Green lacewings (Chrysopidae ; ~1200 species), especially Chrysopa and Chrysoperla species whose larvae are predators of aphids, are invaluable biological control agents. In the green lacewing genus, Chrysopa, adults are also predacious, and these are the only lacewings known to produce aggregation pheromones. However, adults of most other green lacewings, including Chrysoperla species, are not predacious ; instead they feed on nectar and pollen (termed glyco-pollenophagy). Attractant pheromones are unknown for glyco-pollenophagous lacewings ; the only attractant currently available for Chrysoperla lacewings is a blend of floral compounds. During research supervised by Dr. Frank Zalom, University of California, Davis, on the attractiveness of various yeasts to olive fruit flies, large numbers of green lacewings were incidentally attracted (Vitanovic, unpublished data). These lacewings were predominantly Chrysoperla comanche (Winterton, unpublished), one of the most common green lacewings in California. Earlier research by Suh et al. (2004) reported identification of the main gut yeasts of C. comanche as Metschnikowia chrysoperlae and Candida picachoensis. These yeasts are closely related to those found attractive to C. comanche in the olive fruit fly tests. Taken together, these data indicate that adults of glyco-pollenophagous green lacewings, such as Chrysoperla species, are attracted to certain yeasts in nature in order to inoculate themselves with these essential symbionts.

Chrysopidae ; Green lacewings ; yeasts

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