HOST-PLANT INFLUENCES ON SEX-PHEROMONE BEHAVIOR OF PHYTOPHAGOUS INSECTS

The sexual behavior of phytophagous insects is often integrated in a v ariety of ways with their host plants. This integration may be manifes ted as effects or influences of host plants on insect physiology and b ehavior, including sex pheromone communication, that reflect strategie s by insects to optimize mating and reproduction. Certain insects sequ ester or otherwise acquire host plant compounds and use them as sex ph eromones or sex pheromone precursors. Other insects produce or release sex pheromones in response to particular host plant cues. Chemicals f rom host plants often synergize or otherwise enhance insect responses to sex pheromones. By these means, host plants may be used by insects to regulate or mediate sexual communication. For many species of insec ts, host plant influences on insect sex pheromone communication may be important aspects of the formation of feeding and mating aggregations , of insect strategies to locate both hosts and mates, of behavioral r eproductive isolation among sibling species, and of the regulation of reproduction to coincide with the availability of food and oviposition sites. Knowledge of these relationships is critical to understanding many different areas of the behavioral ecology of plant-feeding insect s.