Chinanews.com, Beijing, March 15th (Reporter Sun Zifa) A new environmental research paper published in the academic journal "Nature-Communication" under Springer Nature believes that exposure to ozone pollution may destroy the ability of fruit flies to spread in the air. Pheromones, which interfere with their ability to attract mates or recognize opposite-sex Drosophila.
The discovery highlights yet another possible threat to insect populations from human activity.
Declines in insect populations are a major conservation issue in many countries, with many species at risk of extinction, according to the paper.
Many insects communicate using pheromones, chemical signals released into the air that are especially important for courtship.
For example, both female butterflies and moths use pheromones to attract males from a distance.
However, it is unclear how near-ground ozone, a pollutant produced by industrial emissions, would react to these chemical signals and cause damage.
After 15 minutes of exposure to slightly elevated concentrations of ozone (100 ppb), two male flies attempted to mate.
Photo by Benjamin Fabian
Corresponding author of the paper, Markus Knaden of the Max Planck Institute for Ecological Chemistry in Germany, and Nan-Ji Jiang, the first author of the paper, and colleagues found that exposing male fruit flies to high levels of ozone will cause males to produce information prime degradation.
Female flies were found to be less interested in these males, responding much slower to their courtship behavior.
They also observed male-male courtship following ozone exposure, suggesting that this may be due to the failure of males to distinguish other males from females in the absence of these chemical signals.
The authors note that urban ozone levels are often the same or higher than those used in the study, and that further research is needed to determine how this pollution might affect wild insect populations.
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