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Insects as chemosensors of humans and crops

Nature volume 444, pages 302–307 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

Insects transmit disease to hundreds of millions of people a year, and cause enormous losses to the world's agricultural output. Many insects find the human or plant hosts on which they feed, and identify and locate their mates, primarily through olfaction and taste. Major advances have recently been made in understanding insect chemosensation at the molecular and cellular levels. These advances have provided new opportunities to control insects that cause massive damage to health and agriculture across the world.

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Figure 1: An insect vector of human disease.
Figure 2: Crop plants are vulnerable to insect pests.
Figure 3: Anatomy and physiology of the Drosophila melanogaster antenna.
Figure 4: Tree of Or (Odorant receptor) and Gr (Gustatory receptor) families of Drosophila melanogaster, which belong to a chemoreceptor superfamily.

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Acknowledgements

Our research is funded by the NIH, a Senior Scholar Award from the Ellison Medical Foundation (J.R.C.) and a grant from the Foundation for the NIH through the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative.

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  1. Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Yale University, PO Box 208103, New Haven, 06520-8103, Connecticut, USA

    Wynand van der Goes van Naters & John R. Carlson

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van der Goes van Naters, W., Carlson, J. Insects as chemosensors of humans and crops. Nature 444, 302–307 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature05403

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