Study Sheds Light on Chemicals That Insects Use to Communicate and Survive

摘要

Most insects are covered with a thin layer of hydrocarbon molecules as a waterproofing barrier. Embedded in this layer are compounds that the insects use as chemical signals for a wide variety of functions, such as communicating species and sex. In insects such as ants that live in colonies, they also differentiate the different castes (e.g., workers, queens and drones).But isolating these chemicals and determining their absolute configuration and functions has been a challenge because the chemicals occur in complex mixtures which are hard to separate.Now a team of entomologists and chemists at the University of California, Riverside has devised a straightforward method for purifying these compounds that could result in new "green" methods of controlling pest species, like ants, by disrupting the organization of their colonies.The researchers devised a technique that combined known fractionation methods with reverse phase high-performance liquid chromatography — powerful tools in analysis. Specifically, they used their method to isolate 36 pure hydrocarbon molecules from thecomplex blends of 20 randomly chosen species