Pomegranate fruits damaged by conspecifics attract fruit piercing moth eudocima materna (L.)

Polyphagous fruit piercing moth Eudocima materna (L.) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) was found making periodic visits to conspecific damaged pomegranate fruits, an interesting behavioral response went unnoticed hitherto. The data collected from E. materna damaged fruits revealed multiple moths feeding punctures viz., very old, old, fresh that were inflicted at different times. Significant positive associations (p = 0.01) were observed between different categories of feeding punctures. The fresh, old and very old feeding punctures explained the variability (p<0.0001) in the total feeding punctures/ fruit with R² being 0.71, 0.49, 0.48, respectively. Further, very old and old feeding punctures described significant variability (p<0.0001) in the fresh (20%) and old feeding punctures (29%). The in vitro cage feeding bioassays and antennal response studies using EAG further endorsed the preference of E. materna to conspecific damaged fruits. The GCMS analysis of volatiles of undamaged and damaged fruits revealed the predominance of certain functional groups viz., alcohols, aldehydes, terpenoids etc. in later. The role of herbivore induced plant volatiles (HIPVs) from conspecific damaged fruits in attracting fruit piercing moths is discussed in detail.