Contact: Maria C. Zacharias
mzachari@nsf.gov
703-292-8070
National Science Foundation

Where Are You Now, My Love? (2 of 2)

Caption: Walter Leal, professor of entomology and chemical ecologist at the University of California, Davis, receives a handful of Japanese beetles (Popillia japonica). Through his research into the beetles' sex pheromones, Leal and his team have isolated, identified, cloned and expressed a pheromone-degrading enzyme that could be manipulated to keep males from finding and mating with females. This discovery could lead to important applications in controlling Japanese beetles, invasive pests that have threatened US agriculture since 1916.

Credit: Kathy Keatley Garvey, UC Davis Department of Entomology

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Related news release: Where are you now, my love?