The bean flower thrips, Megalurothrips usitatus, is a destructive pest that affects leguminous crops. Males release aggregation pheromone (2E,6E)-farnesyl acetate (abbreviated as E,E-FOAc) to attract conspecifics of both sexes. Here, we identified 105 olfactory-related genes in the female antennal transcriptome and found that MusiCSP7 was significantly upregulated in female antennae upon brief E,E-FOAc exposure. RNA interference (RNAi) showed that dsMusiCSP7-treated females significantly reduced behavioral attraction and electroantennogram (EAG) responses to E,E-FOAc. Competitive fluorescence binding assays confirmed a high binding affinity between MusiCSP7 and E,E-FOAc. Notably, a brief 30 s exposure to E,E-FOAc significantly increased offspring production and synchronized oviposition in females, accompanied by an increase in vitellogenin receptor (MusiVgR) expression. Our findings reveal a new role of E,E-FOAc in linking behavioral aggregation with reproductive modulation. This dual function enhances mating efficiency and accelerates population growth after host plant localization, conferring an adaptive advantage to M. usitatus.
Feng et al. (Mon,) studied this question.