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Welcome to Insect Chemical Ecology, Ethology and Evolution - or IC-E3 for short!

Chemical ecology is the study of how organisms perceive their surroundings through chemical senses, and the
adaptations that enable them to function in a specific chemosensory context. Our work is in an interdisciplinary
field of research. It incorporates aspects of ecology and evolutionary biology, ethology, neurobiology, physiology,
insect systematics and morphology, molecular biology, analytical chemistry, biochemistry, biomimetric engineering
and pest control.

Our goal

We want to understand how insects adapt olfactory-mediated behavior to a changing environment by phenotypic and geno-typic modulation, from individual adaptation to evolutionary change.

The knowledge of behaviorally active chemicals and their per-ception can be brought to application as safe and powerful tools to control and monitor insect populations.

In order to reach the goal we study the modulation of the insect response to chemical signals at physiological, behavioural and ecological time scales. Methods range from molecular biology to landscape scale manipulation of behaviour.

An initiative funded by
The Swedish Research Council for Environment (Vetenskaps-rådet), Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning (Formas) and The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU).

Selected recent publications


Andersson MN, Grosse-Wilde E, Keeling CI, Bengtsson JM, Yuen MMS, Li M, Hillbur Y, Bohlman J, Hansson BS, Schlyter F (2013). Antennal transcriptome analysis of the chemosensory gene families in the tree killing bark beetles, Ips typographus and Dendroctonus ponderosae (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae). BMC Genomics 14: 198 [2013-04-05 ranked 'Highly accessed' by BMC]

Kárpáti Z, Tasin M, Cardé RT, Dekker T (2013). Early quality assessment lessens pheromone specificity in a moth. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110: 10.1073/pnas.1216145110

Trona F, Anfora G, Balkenius A, Bengtsson M, Tasin M, Knight A, Janz N, Witzgall P, Ignell R (2013). Neural coding merges sex and habitat chemosensory signals in an insect herbivore. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 280: 10.1098/rspb.2013.0267

Zakir A, Sadek MM, Bengtsson M, Hansson BS, Witzgall P, Anderson P (2013). Herbivore-induced plant volatiles provide associational resistance against an ovipositing herbivore. Journal of Ecology (Oxford) 101: 410-417

Becher PG, Flick G, Rozpedowska E, Schmidt A, Hagman A, Lebreton S, Larsson MC, Hansson BS, Piskur J, Witzgall P, Bengtsson M (2012). Yeast, not fruit volatiles mediate Drosophila melanogaster attraction, oviposition and development. Functional Ecology 26: 822-828

Montagné N, Chertemps T, Brigaud I, Francois A, Francois MC, de Fouchier A, Lucas P, Larsson MC, Jacquin-Joly E (2012). Functional characterization of a sex pheromone receptor in the pest moth Spodoptera littoralis by heterologous expression in Drosophila. European Journal of Neuroscience 36: 2588-2596

Saveer AM, Kromann SH, Birgersson G, Bengtsson M, Lindblom T, Balkenius A, Hansson BS, Witzgall P, Becher PG, Ignell R (2012). Floral to green: mating switches moth olfactory coding and preference. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 279: 2314-2322

Stensmyr MC, Dweck HKM, Farhan A, Ibba I, Strutz A, Mukunda L, Linz J, Grabe V, Steck K, Lavista-Llanos S, Wicher D, Sachse S, Knaden M, Becher PG, Seki Y, Hansson BS (2012). A conserved dedicated olfactory circuit for detecting harmful microbes in Drosophila. Cell 151: 1345-1357

In media


Awards

DSC_0287.jpg

Magali Proffit wins the French-Swedish
Prize for Young Researchers 2012

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Theses

Tina Boddum
Gall midge olfaction and its role in speciation

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Saveer Ahmed
Olfactory system of female moths changes after mating

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Zakir Ali

Volatiles from damaged cotton affect both male and female moth behaviours

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Films

The smart Fruitfly (in Swedish)

Pheromones - the good pesticides (in Swedish)

Radio

Fruktflugan avgörande för forskningen
P4, 12 september 2012

Hudbakterier avgör om malariamyggan biter
P1, Vetenskapsradion 30 december 2011

In the news

Jästdofter styr global skadegörare
Notiser från SLU, oktober 2012, sid 2

Fruktflugans doftande paradis
SLU Resurs nr.5 2012, sid 17

Bed Bug Behavior - What Smell Can Tell

Noldus, March 1, 2012

Anti-Aphrodisiac Protects Young Bedbugs

ScienceDaily, Sep 8, 2010

More >>>



IC-E3 was announced 2006-06-29 as one of 20 Linnaeus grants, covering natural science and medicine.
It covers 10 years, 2006–2016. The research is done within the Chemical Ecology Group at SLU Alnarp.

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

© IC-E3, Updated 2013-05-06