Geographical Variation in Response of Southern Pine Beetle (Coleoptera: Scolytidae) to Aggregating Pheromones in Laboratory Bioassays

Laboratory bioassays of southern pine beetle, Dendroctonus frontalis Zimmermann, showed that beetles exhibited regional differences in response to pheromones. Bioassays of crude pheromone extracts from billets infested with beetles collected from Georgia, Texas, and Virginia showed that beetles from each region had significantly higher positive responses to pheromones from their own region. Beetles from Texas showed the strongest response to a standard of frontalin, trans-verbenol, and loblolly pine turpentine, followed by beetles from Georgia and Virginia.