Unveiling Chemical Cues of Insect-Tree and Insect-Insect Interactions for the Eucalyptus Weevil and Its Egg Parasitoid by Multidimensional Gas Chromatographic Methods

Multidimensional gas chromatography is, presently, an established and powerful analytical tool, due to higher resolving power than the classical 1D chromatographic approaches. Applied to multiple areas, it allows to isolate, detect and identify a larger number of compounds present in complex matrice...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Davide Mendes, Sofia Branco, Maria Rosa Paiva, Stefan Schütz, Eduardo P. Mateus, Marco Gomes da Silva
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2022-06-01
Series:Molecules
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/1420-3049/27/13/4042
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Summary:Multidimensional gas chromatography is, presently, an established and powerful analytical tool, due to higher resolving power than the classical 1D chromatographic approaches. Applied to multiple areas, it allows to isolate, detect and identify a larger number of compounds present in complex matrices, even in trace amounts. Research was conducted to determine which compounds, emitted by host plants of the eucalyptus weevil, <i>Gonipterus platensis</i>, might mediate host selection behavior. The identification of a pheromone blend of <i>G. platensis</i> is presented, revealing to be more attractive to weevils of both sexes, than the individual compounds. The volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were collected by headspace solid phase microextraction (HS-SPME), MonoTrap<sup>TM</sup> disks, and simultaneous distillation-extraction (SDE). Combining one dimensional (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) chromatographic systems—comprehensive and heart-cut two-dimensional gas chromatography (GC×GC and H/C-MD-GC, respectively) with mass spectrometry (MS) and electroantennographic (EAD) detection, enabled the selection and identification of pertinent semiochemicals which were detected by the insect antennal olfactory system. The behavioral effect of a selected blend of compounds was assessed in a two-arm olfactometer with ten parallel walking chambers, coupled to video tracking and data analysis software. An active blend, composed by <i>cis</i> and <i>trans</i>-verbenol, verbenene, myrtenol and <i>trans</i>-pinocarveol was achieved.
ISSN:1420-3049