Male bedbugs are so frisky that they will mount anything that looks like a bedbug. But researchers think there might be a way to stop them from following through.A new study by researchers in Sweden found young nymph bedbugs release an “anti-aphrodisiac” pheromone that stops adult males from sexually harassing them.
They are optimistic that the pheromone could one day be used as part of a pest control method to help families and cities battling bedbugs around the world.
The bugs are an ongoing problem in Toronto, where Toronto Public Health has received more than 1,000 calls about bedbugs this year alone. Later this month stakeholders will meet at Queen’s Park for a “Bed Bug Summit” hosted by MPP Mike Colle, who says there’s an abundance of pest control options but little comprehensive research on which ones actually work.
The spike in international bedbug infestations in the past decade has brought new scientific interest and funding for research. At Sweden’s Lund University, Vincent Harraca watched thousands of bedbugs mate (or try to) during a post-doctoral placement in the chemical ecology department.
A word of warning: bedbug sex is not a gentle affair. It involves something called “traumatic insemination.”
A male bedbug’s penis is sharp, “like a weapon,” Harraca says, allowing it to pierce the abdomen of a female bedbug before releasing sperm.
The eager male will jump on not only female bedbugs but also other adult males and nymphs of both sexes, which are not yet fully developed.
Harraca and his colleagues found that, when mounted, a nymph bedbug releases a pheromone that sends a signal to its attacker to leave it alone.
“When the male jumps on the nymph, the nymph will open his gland and release the pheromone and the male will jump off very quickly,” Harraca explains.
He believes a man-made version of the pheromone, sprayed alongside an insecticide, could be used to interfere with bedbug sex, confusing the male bedbugs into thinking all the others are nymphs and thus slowing down the reproduction rate.
Because it sends the bugs running, the pheromone might also make the insecticide more effective.
Harraca says he and his colleagues had a chemist replicate the pheromone, but that they did not have a chance to test it in the field. (Harraca is now on a post-doc placement at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, where he is studying a sugar cane pest.)
“I think someone will do it very quickly, because it’s quite promising, in my opinion,” Harraca says.
Changlu Wang, a professor of entomology at Rutgers, says researchers have tried to stop cockroaches from mating with similar approaches.
Wang says the new research is useful but not necessarily the key to bedbug population control. He says synthetic pheromones are expensive to produce, and that, if sprayed, probably wouldn’t last very long.
In Toronto, Eglinton-Lawrence MPP Mike Colle’s office receives dozens of bedbug-related calls a day — a lot of complaints and concerns, but also suggestions for eradication techniques that range from duct tape to natural products to DDT.
He says the research is “piecemeal and contradictory.”
Colle hopes the bedbug summit on Sept. 29 will convince the provincial and federal governments to underwrite a comprehensive research project on existing eradication techniques and emerging scientific research.
Reg Ayre, a manager in the healthy environments program with Toronto Public Health, says bedbugs have developed a resistance to all the chemicals currently licensed for use in Canada.
They would not, Harraca says, be able to build a resistance to a pheromone that they themselves produce.
“Right now these bugs are very, very resilience,” Colle says. “If there was an atomic war, they say there’s only three things that would be left —bedbugs, cockroaches and dandelions.”
They are optimistic that the pheromone could one day be used as part of a pest control method to help families and cities battling bedbugs around the world.
The bugs are an ongoing problem in Toronto, where Toronto Public Health has received more than 1,000 calls about bedbugs this year alone. Later this month stakeholders will meet at Queen’s Park for a “Bed Bug Summit” hosted by MPP Mike Colle, who says there’s an abundance of pest control options but little comprehensive research on which ones actually work.
The spike in international bedbug infestations in the past decade has brought new scientific interest and funding for research. At Sweden’s Lund University, Vincent Harraca watched thousands of bedbugs mate (or try to) during a post-doctoral placement in the chemical ecology department.
A word of warning: bedbug sex is not a gentle affair. It involves something called “traumatic insemination.”
A male bedbug’s penis is sharp, “like a weapon,” Harraca says, allowing it to pierce the abdomen of a female bedbug before releasing sperm.
The eager male will jump on not only female bedbugs but also other adult males and nymphs of both sexes, which are not yet fully developed.
Harraca and his colleagues found that, when mounted, a nymph bedbug releases a pheromone that sends a signal to its attacker to leave it alone.
“When the male jumps on the nymph, the nymph will open his gland and release the pheromone and the male will jump off very quickly,” Harraca explains.
He believes a man-made version of the pheromone, sprayed alongside an insecticide, could be used to interfere with bedbug sex, confusing the male bedbugs into thinking all the others are nymphs and thus slowing down the reproduction rate.
Because it sends the bugs running, the pheromone might also make the insecticide more effective.
Harraca says he and his colleagues had a chemist replicate the pheromone, but that they did not have a chance to test it in the field. (Harraca is now on a post-doc placement at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, where he is studying a sugar cane pest.)
“I think someone will do it very quickly, because it’s quite promising, in my opinion,” Harraca says.
Changlu Wang, a professor of entomology at Rutgers, says researchers have tried to stop cockroaches from mating with similar approaches.
Wang says the new research is useful but not necessarily the key to bedbug population control. He says synthetic pheromones are expensive to produce, and that, if sprayed, probably wouldn’t last very long.
In Toronto, Eglinton-Lawrence MPP Mike Colle’s office receives dozens of bedbug-related calls a day — a lot of complaints and concerns, but also suggestions for eradication techniques that range from duct tape to natural products to DDT.
He says the research is “piecemeal and contradictory.”
Colle hopes the bedbug summit on Sept. 29 will convince the provincial and federal governments to underwrite a comprehensive research project on existing eradication techniques and emerging scientific research.
Reg Ayre, a manager in the healthy environments program with Toronto Public Health, says bedbugs have developed a resistance to all the chemicals currently licensed for use in Canada.
They would not, Harraca says, be able to build a resistance to a pheromone that they themselves produce.
“Right now these bugs are very, very resilience,” Colle says. “If there was an atomic war, they say there’s only three things that would be left —bedbugs, cockroaches and dandelions.”
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