Fermented or Floral? Developing a Generalized Food Bait Lure to Monitor Cutworm and Armyworm Moths (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) in Field Crops

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript describes a 2-year investigation of food bait lures releasing volatiles mimicking microbial volatile organic compounds (VOCs) associated with food sources and possible oviposition sites against cutworm and armyworm moths. The objective is to develop bisexual lures that would attract multiple species of target moths that are economically important and require monitoring. Multiple blends and dosages of microbial lures were evaluated in different crop habitats against unbaited negative control lures and lures baited with the female sex attractant pheromone (positive control) of each species to confirm catch of males in monitored areas. By catches of non-target insects were also quantified. In addition, several release devices were compared for deploying microbial VOCs in traps. Furthermore, a laboratory based investigation was conducted that measured electrophysiological responses of moth antennae to microbial VOCs that also compared responses by sex and feeding status (fed vs. starved moths). Overall, the investigation nicely demonstrates the potential of using microbial VOCs for monitoring multiple species of cosmopolitan moth species of economic importance.

This manuscript was a pleasure to read for several reasons: 1) it is exceptionally well prepared and written, 2) it is data rich and tells a complete and robust story, and 3) it describes work that is state of the art, well designed, and carefully executed. The experiments are described adequately for replication of the work; the data are clearly presented and analyzed appropriately; and the conclusions are well justified by the results that are presented. This manuscript requires no revision and I am unable to provide suggestions that would further improve it.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1,

Thank you for your time reviewing our manuscript. We greatly appreciate your comments regarding our manuscript. We are humbled to receive your positive feedback and that our research is deemed for publication in this special edition for Insects.

Sincerely, and on behalf of my co-author,

Ronald Batallas.

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript evaluates the effect of semiochemicals on the capture of Noctuidae adults (cutworms and armyworms) in monitoring traps in canola and wheat fields in Canada. A blend of acetic acid (AA) and isoamyl alcohol (MB) as fermentation volatiles were tested in different release rates, types of lures and in combination with other fermentation (isobutanol) and floral (phenylacetaldehyde) volatiles. In addition, electroantennographic (EAG) responses to the tested compounds of redbacked cutworm adults of different sex and feeding status were studied. The results support the main conclusions of the manuscript, where AA+MB lures can be used to attract males and females of the redbacked cutworm and other Noctuidae. Advantages (bisexual, lower and local catches) in comparison with sex pheromone traps (male, higher and regional catches) were discussed in relation with pertinent literature. As expected, attraction to AA+MB lures was related with crop background of volatiles. Finally, vespid bycatches in AA+MB were higher than in sex pheromone traps as expected as well. All the methodologies and analyses performed are appropriate for testing the hypotheses and accomplish the aims of the study. The manuscript includes abundant information and supplementary materials. From this point of view, the last EAG experiments could be left for another publication. Little space was dedicated to this interesting result in the abstract, discussion and conclusion sections.

There are only a couple of minor observations that could improve the manuscript.

Page 2, fourth paragraph, lines 9-11. The reference to Herrera et al. (2008) paper should be moved before the comma of this sentence. Otherwise, it seems to support the attraction of herbivore Lepidoptera to host-plants that is not the case of this reference.

Page 9, third paragraph, lines 5-7. This reference in the results section could be moved to the discussion section, when this point is again addressed.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2,

Thank you for your time reviewing our manuscript. We appreciate the constructive comments regarding our manuscript. 

We addressed the minor observations and implemented the changes suggested for Page 2, Paragraph 4, and Page 9, Paragraph 3. 

We agree that the findings from the EAG experiment on redbacked cutworm moth antennae are quite interesting; however, it would need additional experiments to make it a publishable unit on its own. Electrophysiological studies need to be complemented by behavioural studies. An antenna may respond to semiochemicals in the EAG experiment, but that doesn't imply it would lead to behaviour in response to the volatile.

We strongly believe that the findings from the EAG experiment complement the results from the field trapping experiments and help us understand the attraction of the redbacked cutworm moth to the different tested food bait lures. As suggested in your comments, we included more information in the abstract from EAG findings.

Sincerely, and on behalf of my co-author,

Ronald Batallas.