New Research on Japanese Beetle

Walter Leal, shown in a mirror image, inspects a handful of Japanese beetles. Damages in the larval and adult stages cost more than $450 million annually in the United States, according to the USDA. (UC Davis photo)

UC Davis chemical ecologists, led by Walter Leal, have isolated, identified, cloned and expressed a pheromone-degrading enzyme in the Japanese beetle that could lead to important applications in controlling the invasive pest that has threatened U.S. agriculture since 1916.

The research, aimed at exploring new frontiers in pest control and funded by the USDA’s National Research Initiative and the National Science Foundation, probes the male Japanese beetle’s sophisticated sense of smell and how it distinguishes between two sex pheromones.

Source: centralvalleybusinesstimes.com