The primary purpose of this project is to develop a synthetic bread dough odor as a novel tool for managing and detecting invasive g astropods

This Cooperative Agreement award from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (CFDA #10.025 - Plant and Animal Disease, Pest Control, and Animal Care) aims to develop a synthetic odor blend to serve as a novel tool for managing and detecting invasive gastropod species.

The primary objectives are to: 1) identify the volatile chemical compounds in fermenting bread dough that are attractive to the invasive snail pest Cornu aspersum, and 2) compile one or more synthetic bread dough volatile blends that can effectively attract this target gastropod species in laboratory bioassays. The total funding for this 2-year project is $151,721, with a start date of September 1, 2023. The research will be conducted by Oregon State University as the prime awardee, with Simon Fraser University as a sub-grantee providing supporting research and analysis. This innovative approach could benefit nursery, specialty crop, and commercial growers across the U.S. by providing an effective new method for detecting and managing invasive gastropods, ultimately impacting both domestic and export markets.

Unlike insects pests, the chemical cues and signals that gastropods use to find food, or mediate intraspecific communication have largely been left unexploited for pest management purposes. As a starting point to help address this knowledge GAP, PI MC donnell and colleagues recently identified a simple fermenting bread dough as highly effective in attracting a wide range of temperate and tropical pest gastropod species (including the national priority pest, lissachatina fulica) in hawaii, montana and oregon. This discovery was featured in regional, national and international press outlets, and recently the australia department of agriculture incorporated bread dough into their surveillance trap network to help detect invasive gastropod species. However, bread dough is not without disadvantages (e.g. IT is prone to drying out in dry climates and is sticky and messy). Thus, the aim of this project is to develop a synthetic odor blend, which would have a number of benefits e.g. IT would be more amenable to deployment on a large scale and to incorporation into existing pesticides. The goals of this suggestion (year 1) are to collect and fractionate volatiles from fermenting bread dough; identify all chemicals in bioactive fractions; and compile one or more synthetic bread dough volatile blends that are attractive to our target gastropod, the quarantine snail pest cornu aspersum. This project is expected to last 2-YRS and will directly benefit nursery, specialty crop producers, large-scale commercial growers, and consequently trade throughout the US by providing a novel, effective approach for detecting and managing invasive gastropods. IT will also directly impact export markets by providing a tool that can be used to certify that export crops and regions are free of particular species such as our target, c. Aspersum. Organic growers will also benefit greatly because their current methods for snail management are more limited than those of conventional growers. In terms of detecting new invasive pests, current detection methods rely almost exclusively on visual inspection of incoming shipments at state and national borders, largely because there are no alternative tools available. At the conclusion of this project, the following deliverables will be provided: all chemicals in bioactive fractions of fermenting bread dough will be identified and any that are not available for purchase will be synthesized. Compilation of one or more synthetic bread dough volatile blends that are attractive to the invasive snail, c. Aspersum in laboratory bioassays.