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12 February 2020 Potential for Use of Erythritol as a Socially Transferrable Ingested Insecticide for Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)
Meghan Barrett, Virginia Caponera, Cheyenne McNair, Sean O'Donnell, Daniel R. Marenda
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Abstract

Ants are significant structural and agricultural pests, generating a need for human-safe and effective insecticides for ant control. Erythritol, a sugar alcohol used in many commercial food products, reduces survival in diverse insect taxa including fruit flies, termites, and mosquitos. Erythritol also decreases longevity in red imported fire ants; however, its effects on other ant species and its ability to be transferred to naïve colony members at toxic doses have not been explored. Here, we show that erythritol decreases survival in Tetramorium immigrans Santschi (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in a concentration-dependent manner. Access to ad-libitum water reduced the toxic effects of erythritol, but worker mortality was still increased over controls with ad-lib water. Foraging T. immigrans workers transferred erythritol at lethal levels to nest mates that had not directly ingested erythritol. Similar patterns of mortality following erythritol ingestion were observed in Formica glacialis Wheeler (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), Camponotus subarbatus Emery (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), and Camponotus chromaiodes Bolton (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). These findings suggest that erythritol may be a highly effective insecticide for several genera of ants. Erythritol's potential effectiveness in social insect control is augmented by its spread at lethal levels through ant colonies via social transfer (trophallaxis) between workers.

© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.
Meghan Barrett, Virginia Caponera, Cheyenne McNair, Sean O'Donnell, and Daniel R. Marenda "Potential for Use of Erythritol as a Socially Transferrable Ingested Insecticide for Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)," Journal of Economic Entomology 113(3), 1382-1388, (12 February 2020). https://doi.org/10.1093/jee/toaa019
Received: 25 October 2019; Accepted: 16 January 2020; Published: 12 February 2020
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KEYWORDS
ants
erythritol
mortality
social transfer
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