wild plums alone, and five punctured plums. 

 Punctured plums were used to simulate plums 

 that had been fed upon by PCs because we 

 wanted to learn if plums that had been punc- 

 tured released odors that may be attractive to 

 PCs. Each plum was punctured twice, one punc- 

 ture made one hour before and one puncture 

 made immediately before an experiment. An 

 empty cotton bag served as the control in each 

 experiment. 



Results presented reflect the mean number 

 of PCs captured for each treatment over the four 

 replications. 



Results 



Male Responses. In experiment 1 (Table 

 1), we used two arenas to test male response to 

 the following treatments. In arena one, treat- 

 ments included males, males plus wild plums, 

 and wild plums placed in a small cotton bag, 

 with an empty cotton bag serving as the con- 

 trol. Here, males responded in significantly 

 greater numbers to cotton bags containing 

 plums alone or males plus plums compared to 



males alone or the empty bag. Treatments 

 tested in arena two included females, females 

 plus plums, plums, and a control. In this case, 

 males were attracted to females plus plums in 

 significantly greater numbers than to any other 

 treatment. 



In experiment 2 (Table 2), in arena 1 we then 

 evaluated male responses to punctured plums 

 compared to plums without punctures with two 

 empty cotton bags serving as controls. Here, 

 we wanted to learn if males were responding to 

 odor emitted by punctures made in plums by 

 feeding PCs. We saw no difference in response 

 of males to punctured plums compared to plums 

 not punctured, although there was a numeri- 

 cally greater response to the former. In arena 

 two, we compared male responses to females 

 plus plums, males plus plums and to two empty 

 bags serving once again as controls. Signifi- 

 cantly more males responded to females plus 

 plums than to any other treatment, indicating 

 that males may be responding to a female-pro- 

 duced odor. 



Female Responses. In experiment 3 

 (Table 3), we repeated treatments for female 



Table 3. Numbers of female PCs moving to within 1/2 inch or onto cloth bags of each 

 treatment after 1 hour. Experiment 3.* 



Arena 



Treatments 



One 



Five males Five males + five plums Five plums 

 OOb 2.8 a 1.3 ab 



Con trol 

 O.Ob 



Two 



Five females Five females + five plums Five plums Control 



O.Ob 1.0 ab 2.8 a O.Ob 



* Means within rows not followed by the same letter are significantly diffcn>nt at 

 odds of 19:1. 



Fruit Notes, Volume 6.^ (Numhcr 1), Winter, 1998 



