Several yellowjacket species are important pests in both their native habitat and in areas where they are invasive. Traps that contain one or more chemical attractants to lure insects inside are commonly used to combat these yellowjackets in urban environments. Usually, attractants are placed within the trap and combined indiscriminately, though little is known about how this design influences ...

Females of Cylindrocorpus longistoma and C. curzii excrete attractants which probably function to bring the sexes together before mating. Intraspecific and interspecific heterosexual and homosexual pairing experiments showed the attractants to be species specific as well as sex specific. Observations on mating behavior support the hypothesis that sexual attraction and copulation require indepen...

L ike the proverbial donkey that follows the carrot, tumor cells follow chemical attractants. Unlike the donkey, however, the tumor cells even make their own carrots, according to a report The group was interested in how tumor cells migrate to lymphatic vessels—the fi rst step in malignancy for most carcinomas. Migrating tumor cells express receptors for attractants that lym-phatics normally pr...

CALIFORNIA AGRICULTURE Progress Reports of Agricultural Research published monthly by the University of Cali: fornia Division of Agricultural Sciences. William W. Paul . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Manager Agricultural Publications Jer ry Lester . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Editor Eleanore Browning . . . . . .Assistant Editor California Agriculture Articles published herein may be republ...

Olfaction is a versatile and sensitive mechanism for detecting volatile odorants. We show that the nematode C. elegans detects many volatile chemicals, which can be attractants, repellents, or attractants at low concentrations and repellents at high concentrations. Through laser ablation, we have identified chemosensory neurons that detect volatile odorants. Chemotaxis to volatile odorants requ...

Phenotypic analysis of the daf-11 and daf-21 mutants of Caenorhabditis elegans suggests that they have defects in components shared by processes analogous to vertebrate taste and olfaction. daf-11 and daf-21 mutations were previously shown to cause inappropriate response to the dauer-inducing pheromone. By mutational analysis and by disabling specific chemosensory sensilla with a laser, we show...

Intracellular recordings show that (i) paramecia hyperpolarize slightly in attractants and depolarize in repellents that depend on the avoiding reaction (an abrupt change of swimming direction), and (ii) paramecia more strongly hyperpolarize in repellents and more strongly depolarize in attractants that depend on changes of swimming velocity. These membrane potential changes are in agreement wi...