Odor specificity testing in the assessment of efficacy and non-target risk for Trichogramma ostriniae (Hymenoptera: Trichogrammatidae)

Trichogramma ostriniae Pang and Chen (Hymenoptera: Trichogrammatidae) is an indigenous egg parasitoid of Ostrinia furnacalis Guenée (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) in China. We evaluated T. ostriniae's responses in olfactometer and wind tunnel assays to various host and plant odors that are likely to impact the efficacy and non-target risk of utilizing T. ostriniae as an augmentative biocontrol agent against Ostrinia nubilalis Hübner in the USA. In a Y-olfactometer, female T. ostriniae exhibited innate positive responses to the egg mass volatiles, scale volatiles, and synthetic sex pheromones of O. nubilalis. When exposed to O. nubilalis pheromone while walking on a platform in a wind tunnel, the wasps manifested significant changes in patch exploration behavior, including delayed dispersal from the platform and slowed walking. The wasps did not respond innately to the synthetic pheromone of a non-target species, Spodoptera frugiperda J. E. Smith (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), however. Exposing wasps to S. frugiperda pheromone together with eggs of a factitious rearing host prior to testing also did not alter the wasps’ lack of response to the pheromone, indicating that associative learning of the novel odor did not occur. Lastly, wasps showed no innate responses to leaf volatiles from corn (Zea mays L.) and pepper (Capsicum annuum L.), two crops attacked by O. nubilalis. We conclude that T. ostriniae is likely to be highly efficient at finding O. nubilalis eggs in the field through the exploitation of host chemical cues. Further, T. ostriniae's response to moth pheromone appears to be relatively host-specific, since the wasps responded to the pheromone of a congener to their natural host, but not to the pheromone of a more distantly related non-target species. This type of odor-specificity could be an important mechanism for reducing the risk of T. ostriniae attack on non-target species.