Genetic regulation of sex pheromone production and response

Abstract

The sex pheromone communication system of the European corn borer moth varies intraspecifically. Analyses of pheromonal extracts of wild females, collected in a region where the types (each producing a different isomeric proportion ofZ- andE-11-tetradecenyl acetate) are sympatric, showed that theZ pheromone-production allele frequency was ca. 4 times greater than theE allele. The paucity ofE production and response alleles in the population indicates that moths inheriting those alleles concomitantly inherit some undefined disadvantage. The types interbreed, but the frequency of heterozygous pheromone-production types among wild females was less than predicted by Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium and was evidence of positive assortative mating. Rates of male captures in field traps baited with females of the three pheromonal types also evidenced assortative mating in the population. Progeny tests with males captured in the traps provided circumstantial evidence that pheromone response and production functions in the species are regulated by separate genetic loci and that the loci are not always complementary; i.e., a male can carry an allele coding for production of one pheromonal isomer ratio but can be genetically predisposed to respond to another.