| title: | Function of antennal receptors of click beetles and ground beetles in searching for habitat, food and conspecific beetles |
|---|---|
| reg no: | ETF5423 |
| project type: | Estonian Science Foundation research grant |
| subject: |
4. Agricultural Sciences |
| status: | accepted |
| institution: | EAU Faculty of Agronomy |
| head of project: | Enno Merivee |
| duration: | 01.01.2003 - 31.12.2006 |
| description: | Main objectives of the project are: through single-sensillum electrophysiological experiments: 1. To explain the effect of female pheromone to males' as well as females' antennal olfactory receptors of some most destructive click beetles. 2. To explain the influence of the odours of preys, conspecific beetles and biotope specific plants to antennal chemoreceptors of different ground beetles. 3. To identify thermo- and hygroreceptors on the antennae of some ground beetles and click beetles. 4. To identify mechanoreceptors on the antennae of the beetles, and to study directional sensitivity of the identified mechanoreceptors in order to explain their possible role in detecting of the wind direction in anemotactic beahavioural responses evoked by odours. 5. Through behavioural experiments to explain whether and how (chemotaxis, anemotaxis, chemokinesis) olfaction influences detecting the location of prey in ground beetles. 6. To collect research material for MSc and PhD dissertations. The work should give important additional information about the role of antennal receptors in prey detection and habitat selection in different ground beetles. Some respective searching mechanisms will be tried to explain. Some basic problems of the pheromone communication system in click beetles will be tried to explain also. |
| project group | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| no | name | institution | position | |
| 1. | Mikk Heidemaa | EAU | research associate | |
| 2. | Enno Merivee | EAU Faculty of Agronomy | senior research associate | |
| 3. | Angela Ploomi | EAU | PhD student | |