Pheromone production in the butterfly Pieris napi L

Sammanfattning: Aphrodisiac and anti-aphrodisiac pheromone production and composition in the green-veined white butterfly Pieris napi L. were investigated.Aphrodisiac pheromone biosynthesis had different time constraints in butterflies from the diapausing and directly developing generations.Effects of stable isotope incorporation in adult butterfly pheromone, in the nectar and flower volatiles of  host plants from labeled substrates were measured by solid phase microextraction and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry.A method to fertilize plants with stable isotopes was developed and found to be an effective method to investigate the transfer of pheromone building blocks from flowering plants to butterflies. The anti-aphrodisiac methyl salicylate was not biosynthesized from phenylalanine in flowers of Alliaria petiolata.Both aphrodisiac and anti-aphrodisiac pheromones in P.napi are produced not only from resources acquired in the larval stage, but also from nutritional resources consumed intheadult stage. Males of P. napi produce the anti-aphrodisiac pheromone from both the essential amino acid L-phenylalanine and from common flower fragrance constituents.