Individual variation in aggregation pheromone content of the bark beetle,Ips typographus

Abstract

The total amounts of, and proportions among, components of the aggregation pheromone produced byIps typographus were found to vary considerably among individuals excised from attacks on standing spruce trees. Chemical analyses of 392 individual male beetles were made by GC-MS. Both unmated and mated males had log-normal frequency distributions in their content of the pheromone components 2-methyl-3-buten-2-ol (MB) andcis-verbenol (cV), since a large fraction of males had a low content. The amount of MB in male hindguts varied independently of cV and the other oxygenated monoterpenes, while the amount of cV covaried with the other pinene alcohols and showed a variation between beetles from different spruce trees. Mated males had, on average, lower amounts of MB than unmated, while the average content of cV in mated males varied with the resin content of their host trees. Ipsdienol and ipsenol were only found in mated males, but in less than 40% and 10%, respectively, of these mated males. Even-aged males exposed to α-pinene in the laboratory showed slightly less variation in the amounts of verbenols, and the variations in ratio between cV and tV were similar to those among males attacking the same spruce tree.