Male crucifer flea beetles produce an aggregation pheromone

Authors

• Chengwang Peng, North Dakota State University
• Robert J. Bartelt, USDA-ARS
• Michael J. Weiss, North Dakota State University

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

1999

Comments

Published in Physiological Entomology (1999) 24, 98–99.

Abstract

The flea beetle, Phyllotreta cruciferae (Goeze), is a pest of crucifer crops throughout most of North America (Lamb, 1989). Adult beetle feeding on crucifer vegetables causes small pits in the epidermis, which affects the marketability (Vaughn & Hoy, 1993). Larger population of beetles can kill or stunt seedlings. In the northern Great Plains of the United States and Canada, this species is the most serious pest of spring-planted oilseed rape, Brassica napus and B. rapa (Lamb, 1989; Weiss et al., 1991). Overwintering adults feed on the cotyledons and stems, resulting in seedling mortality and causing the crop to mature unevenly when the population is high (Burgess, 1977; Lamb, 1989).