Physical, Biological and Chemical Aspects of the Environmental Pest-control Method of Mating Disruption in Moths

Please join us for next Monday departmental seminar on the 15th of November from 15:00 to 16:00 at the Porter Auditorium

 https://tau-ac-il.zoom.us/j/83229921170

Ph.D. Seminar by Yiftach Golov

Physical, Biological and Chemical Aspects of the Environmental Pest-control Method of Mating Disruption in Moths

Abstract

A major problem of modern agriculture is its intense reliance on pest-control methods (i.e. pesticides) that have a devastating impact on the environment. The long-range, sexual interaction of many agricultural pests is mediated by odorant signaling. This odor-mediated reproduction system is characterized by a female that releases a species-specific odor (known as sex pheromone) that is used by the searching male to find her specific location. In the last decades, a promising sustainable pest-control method known as mating disruption has been extensively adopted by farmers worldwide. This biotechnological method is based on the biomimicry approach, where the sex pheromone is commercially synthesized and spread in the targeted crop in order to prevent the reproduction of the pest. However, recent local reports of increasing failures of this method have led farmers to abandon it, and revert to the utilization of harmful pesticides. Notably, there is no conclusive explanation of the decreasing in the efficiency of this method. The goal of this research is to deepen our understanding of the fundamental aspects concerning the odor-mediated sexual communication of agricultural pests: the navigation strategy of the searcher, with special emphasis on in-flight decision making and the effects of the pheromone distribution in the air under turbulent conditions. Two moth species, known as major agricultural pests globally, Israel included, are served as animal models - the pink bollworm, a pest of cotton and the codling moth, a pest of apples. This research is executed in a multidisciplinary approach in order to combine the different scientific fields of biology, chemical ecology, physics (fluids mechanics) and nano-chemistry. The accumulated knowledge will be used for the method’s optimization. This research has various types of contribution: First, from an applied perspective, the improvement of the mating disruption method is expected to significantly reduce the use of hazardous pesticides; this objective is in line with the present mindset of the sustainable paradigm. Second, from a merely scientific perspective, this research is expected to contribute directly to the understanding of the moth sexual ecology, the movement of particles in turbulence air and nano-chemical technology. Indirectly the study is expected to provide insight in the fields of (1) biotechnology (e.g. bio-inspired robotic), (2) computational biology, (3) environmental science, (4) medicine and (5) precision agriculture and more.