Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Chemoecology https://doi.org/10.1007/s00049-020-00308-2 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Identifcation and evaluation of four cucurbitaceous host plant volatiles attractive to Diaphania indica (Saunders) (Lep.: Pyralidae) Amin Moghbeli Gharaei 1  · Mahdi Ziaaddini 1  · Brigitte Frérot 2  · Samad Nejad Ebrahimi 3  · M. Amin Jalali 1  · Gadi V. P. Reddy 4 Received: 30 July 2019 / Accepted: 24 March 2020 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 Abstract The cucumber moth (CM), Diaphania indica (Saunders) (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae), is a major lepidopteran pest of cucur- bitaceous plants that caterpillars feed on vegetative tissue of the plants and thereby cause loss of crops. Previous work has shown that volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released by host plants attract gravid CM females for oviposition, but the compounds responsible for this attraction had not been identifed. The purpose of the present study was to identify attractive volatiles/mixtures of components to CM. VOCs from four host plants (cucumber, squash, melon, and watermelon) were collected with solid-phase microextraction fbers and identifed by GC–MS. The electroantennography (EAG) response of gravid CM female antennae to host plant VOCs was determined, and also the behavioral responses to selected VOCs were tested in a wind tunnel. From a total of 22 components that were identifed, only four (xylene, α-pinene, limonene, and (E)- β-ocimene) were present in all four host plant species. However, these four components seem to play a minor role in CM attraction as shown by EAG and behavioral (wind tunnel) experiments. Benzenoids and terpenoids were the main VOCs for the four host plants. The strongest EAG responses were elicited by four aliphatic compounds ((Z)-6-nonenal, octanal, (E)-2-octen 1-ol, and 1-hexanol) and two benzenoids (benzyl alcohol, and benzaldehyde). In wind tunnel experiments, the most fight responses were recorded for three blends consisting of four compounds [(E, Z)-2,6-nonadienal, (E)-2-nonenal, (Z)-6-nonenal, and 4,8-dimethyl-1,3,7-nonatriene (DMNT)] + (1) benzaldehyde, and benzyl alcohol, (2) β-caryophyllene, and (3) benzyl alcohol. However, only blends composed of (1) benzyl alcohol and DMNT or (2) benzyl alcohol, benzaldehyde, and DMNT elicited landing responses. These fndings indicate that mixtures mimicking cucumber volatiles attract gravid CM females, which could in further steps be used to develop lures for control management of CM. Keywords Cucumber moth · Electroantennogram · Female attractant · GC–MS · SPME · VOCs Introduction Natural plant odors are blends of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) with diferent distributions across plant taxa, includ- ing some compounds that are taxonomically restricted and other more that are more ubiquitous. Volatiles are emitted from diferent parts of plants, such as leaves, stems, roots, fruits, seeds, as well as fowers, which apparently release the highest amounts and diversity of VOCs (Frérot et al. 2017). VOC blends difer depending on plant characteristics (such as species and genotype, age, part, or physiology), diel peri- odicity, climatic factors, and pollution (McCormick et al. 2012; Frérot et al. 2017; Moghbeli Gharaei et al. 2019). Vol- atile compounds found in plants can be classifed according to chemical structure and biosynthetic origin as aliphatics, benzenoids and phenylpropanoids, hydrocarbons, terpenoids CHEMOECOLOGY Communicated by Günther Raspotnig. * Mahdi Ziaaddini ziaaddini@vru.ac.ir 1 Department of Crop Protection, College of Agriculture, Vali-e-Asr University of Rafsanjan, Rafsanjan, Iran 2 INRA, Institute of Ecology and Environmental Sciences iEES-Paris, Route de Saint-Cyr, 78026 Versailles Cedex, France 3 Department of Phytochemistry, Medicinal Plants and Drugs Research Institute, Shahid Beheshti University, G. C., Evin, Tehran, Iran 4 USDA-ARS-Southern Insect Management Research Unit, 141 Experiment Station Rd., P.O. Box 346, Stoneville, MS 38776, USA