Ozone exposure disrupts insect sexual communication

Insect pheromones can be degraded by the air pollutant ozone. Jiang et al. show that ozone-exposed male flies lose their pheromones and become less attractive to females. Additionally, ozone-exposed males exhibited increased male-male courtship behaviour as a result of reduced sex recognition.

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Nan-Ji Jiang, Hetan Chang, Jerrit Weißflog, Franziska Eberl, Daniel Veit, Kerstin Weniger, Bill S. Hansson, Markus Knaden
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nature Portfolio 2023-03-01
Series:Nature Communications
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-36534-9