Abstract
Insects are behaviorally and physiologically affected by different light conditions, including photoperiod, light intensity, and spectrum. Light at night has important influences on nocturnal insects, including most moth species. Moth copulation and mating usually occur at night. Although a few studies examine changes in insect mating under artificial light at night, detailed influences of light, such as that of monochromatic light, on moth mating remain largely unknown. In this study, on the basis of long-term insects rearing experience, dim red light (spectrum range: 610–710nm, with a peak at 660nm; 2.0 Lux) during scotophase was hypothesized to enhance mating in the yellow peach moth, Conogethes punctiferalis. To test the hypothesis, the mating of moths under dim red, blue, and white lights during scotophase was observed. Under the dim red light, the enhancement of mating in C. punctiferalis was observed. In addition, the electroantennografic response of males against the female sex pheromone increased with red light treatment during scotophase. In an analysis of the differentially expressed genes in the antennae of males under red light and dark conditions, the expression levels of two odorant-binding protein (OBP) genes, CpunOBP2 and CpunPBP5, were up-regulated. Two genes were then expressed in Escherichia coli, and the recombinant proteins showed strong binding to female pheromone components in fluorescence-binding assays. Thus, the results of this study indicated that dim red light at night enhanced the mating of C. punctiferalis. One of the mechanisms for the enhancement was probably an increase in the antennal sensitivity of males to the female sex pheromone under red light that was caused by increases in the expression levels of pheromone-binding protein genes in male antennae.
Highlights
Light influences many behaviors of insects, including host-finding, aggregation, mating, and oviposition (Matthews and Matthews, 2010)
A fluorescence-binding assay was used to measure the affinity of the recombined CpunOBP2 and CpunPBP5 to female sex pheromone components (Liu et al, 2012; Ge et al, 2018)
Dim red light at night was hypothesized to increase mating in C. punctiferalis. To test this hypothesis, mating of C. punctiferalis was observed during scotophase with and without dim red light (610–710 nm, 2.0 lux)
Summary
Light influences many behaviors of insects, including host-finding, aggregation, mating, and oviposition (Matthews and Matthews, 2010). Red-Light Enhances Moth Mating and mating behaviors, including total calling percentage, onset time of calling, total mating percentage, and mating duration, decreased significantly (Xiang et al, 2018). In Cnophalocrocis medinalis, calling frequency decreased substantially under constant light, compared with a normal photoperiod of 15Light∶9Dark (Kawazu et al, 2011). The wavelength of light influences insect mating behaviors. In a comprehensive study on the influences of light on the reproductive performance of the potential natural enemy Propylea japonica, the light intensity, wavelength and photoperiod had important effects on the mating behaviors of pursuit time, number of copulations, and duration of copula (Wang et al, 2014)
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