Study On Volatile Components In Nectar Plants And Host Plants Of Butterfly

The butterflies are insects belonged to the Rhopalocera Lepidoptera. Many of these species had high ornamental value. The nature was decked by them and the ecological balance of the nature was also maintained. The population reproduction of plant-feed insects depended on whether they had found the right host plants and adequate nutrition, both of the two factors involved in the volatiles of plant. It is necessary to study the volatiles of butterfly's host plants and nectar plants. The attractive chemical compositions were found out through the study and made full use of them to achieve the value of butterflies.Volatiles from the nectar plants and host plants of butterflies were analyzed and 6 kinds of chemical compositions and their combinations were chosen to do field test. The main results were showed as follows:The visiting of butterflies in different plants were significant different at 0.01 level. It had the highest visiting time on Lantana camara and accounted for 34.2%. The visiting number on five plants of Danaus chrysippus was 981, it was more than others.Volatiles from the nectar plants and host plants of butterflies were closely and circularly head-space sampled within adsorptive tubes, then analyzed by auto thermal-desorption gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (ATD-GC/MS) in this research. Olefins, aldehydes, alcohols, esters and so on were major ingredient in volatiles. Olefins were not detected only in volatiles of Aristolochia tagala. Alpha pinene only had not been detected in volatiles of Asclepias curassavica and Aristolochia tagala. 6 kinds of chemical compositions and their combinations were chosen to do field test after analyzing. They were Alpha pinene, octanal, benzaldehyde, methyl salicylate, terpineol anhydrous and eucalyptol. The visits on different components were significant different at 0.01 level.Overall, Alpha pinene and eucalyptol were visited more than other components, the visiting number of Danaus chrysippus accounted for 25.53% of total number of visits on eucalyptol. In the compounds experiments, Alpha pinene and Alpha pinene combined with eucalyptol had better attraction to butterfly. Alpha pinene combined with eucalyptol were visited more than other components by Danaus chrysippus and the visiting number on the compound accounted for 26.17% of total number. Alpha pinene combined with methyl salicylate also had attraction to Danaus chrysippus, the visiting numbers accounted for 13.72%.We could reach a conclusion that Alpha pinene, methyl salicylate eucalyptol and octanal had a better attraction to Danaus chrysippus. The visitings on Alpha pinene combined with methyl salicylate and Alpha pinene combined with eucalyptol were better than other mixed compounds.