Although being chemically diverse, most of these potential pheromones share one specific feature-they contain carbon double bonds.ĭuring the Anthropocene, insects communicating with such unsaturated pheromones are facing a potential challenge: the oxidization of double bonds by increased levels of oxidant pollutants like ozone 12. Many fly species of the genus Drosophila are known to produce male specific compounds that increase their attractiveness towards conspecific females, become transferred during copulation, and, hence, seem to fulfill similar pheromone-like roles like cVA in Drosophila melanogaster 10, 11. cVA is thus attractive to females but repulsive to males. During copulation, however, the male, in order to ensure its paternity, transfers cVA to the female and thereby reduces the female’s attractiveness to other males 6, 8, 9.
This compound is produced by male Drosophila melanogaster, governs sex recognition, and the cVA amount present on a male has been shown to correlate with the male’s attractiveness to a female 4, 5, 6, 7. A particularly well-investigated pheromone is cis-Vaccenyl Acetate (cVA). In this context, most insects use sex pheromones to discriminate conspecifics from allospecifics and to identify the sex and mating status of a potential mate 1, 2, 3. Finding and judging a suitable mate is pivotal for reproduction in many animals.
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