Plum-damaging insect confuses sticky traps with flowers
Egri Á, Tholt G, Viczián O, Mergenthaler E, Kecskeméti S
Plant Signaling
If you grow plums, cherries, or apricots, the same white flowers that signal spring to you are also luring in a disease-spreading pest, which is exactly why orchardists use white traps to catch it before it reaches the blossoms.
A small insect called the plum psyllid spends winter on conifers, then flies to plum and other stone fruit trees in spring, carrying a disease along the way. Researchers found the insect sees the world in something like trichromatic color vision, similar to how it might process UV, blue, and green light, and it also smells specific floral scents. It turns out white plum flowers and white sticky traps send nearly the same visual signal, which explains why the traps work so well at catching these pests before they reach the trees.
Key Findings
Cacopsylla pruni has UV-, blue-, and green-sensitive photoreceptors enabling potential trichromatic color vision
Color vision modeling showed white Prunus flowers and white sticky traps produce nearly identical chromatic and achromatic signals to the insect
Antennae responded strongly to seven key floral volatiles including benzaldehyde, linalool, and methyl salicylate, supporting a two-stage host-finding strategy (vision for long range, smell for close range)
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists discovered that a tiny insect called the plum psyllid uses both color vision and smell to find its host trees each spring, and it turns out white sticky traps trick it because they look almost identical to white plum blossoms. This matters because this insect spreads a disease that damages stone fruit orchards across Europe.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Visual and olfactory evidence of host plant recognition by Cacopsylla pruni.
The plum psyllid, Cacopsylla pruni (Hemiptera: Psyllidae), is the primary vector of 'Candidatus Phytoplasma prunorum', the causal agent of European Stone Fruit Yellows (ESFY). Its seasonal host alt...
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A plum is a fruit of some species in Prunus subg. Prunus. Dried plums are usually called prunes.