Electroantennogram responses by mountain pine beetles,Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins, exposed to selected semiochemicals.

Electroantennograms (EAGs) were obtained forD. ponderosae to the bark beetle pheromonestrans-verbenol,cis-verbenol,exo-brevicomin,endo-brevicomin, frontalin, verbenone; to the kairomones, α-pinene, β-pinene, camphene, Δ-3-carene, limonene, myrcene; to a blend (1∶1∶1) oftrans-verbenol,exo-brevicomin, and myrcene; and to diacetone-alcohol. Male and female responses, in general, did not differ significantly over the whole EAG dose-response curves but differed at a few concentrations on many of the curves. There were more differences noted for pheromones than kairomones. The blend yielded among the largest EAGs in both sexes and appeared to show synergism. Responses of females were lower than those for males in most instances. Significant differences in responses by the two sexes were much fewer for the kairomones than the pheromones. EAG recovery rates tested at only one concentration showed significant differences between males and females for three pheromones,trans-verbenol,cis-verbenol, and verbenone, and two kairomones, camphene and Δ-3-carene. Thresholds were quite low for most of the odorants exceptcis-verbenol, camphene, verbenone, and diacetone-alcohol in females, andcis-verbenol, verbenone, α-pinene, and diacetone-alcohol in males. The results, using at least one EAG parameter, support behavioral and field studies involvingexo-brevicomin,trans-verbenol, frontalin, and the blend.