%0 Journal Article
%T Attract, Repel, Confuse, or Recruit? Choosing Semiochemical Strategies That Align Insect Behaviour with Integrated Pest-Management Objectives
%A Andrei Popescu
%A Mihai Ionescu
%A Elena Stan
%A Charlotte Dupuis
%J Entomology and Applied Science Letters
%@ 2349-2864
%D 2025
%V 12
%N 4
%R 10.51847/8ySUQFNbmv
%P 37-46
%X Semiochemicals can redirect insect orientation, host finding, mating, feeding, aggregation, and natural-enemy foraging, but selecting among attraction, repellency, confusion, and recruitment remains an integrated pest-management decision problem rather than a simple choice of an active compound. The central evidence gap is that behavioural responses are frequently interpreted as control even when population suppression, crop protection, operational compatibility, and durability have not been demonstrated. This Original Semiochemical Strategy Article develops a proposed, explicitly non-validated strategy logic by conceptually integrating evidence on behavioural control tools, attraction and mass trapping, repellency and host-location disruption, confusion and push–pull, natural-enemy recruitment, spatial context, delivery, and behavioural adaptation. The synthesis indicates that strategy selection should begin with the protected endpoint and the behavioural breakpoint that causally connects insect activity to crop risk. Attraction is useful only when approach is converted into reliable interception, retention, removal, or monitoring information; repellency is useful only when displacement reduces crop contact without transferring pressure elsewhere; confusion requires evidence of disrupted communication and downstream reproductive effects; and recruitment requires demonstrated enemy encounter and attack rather than abundance alone. Across these operations, laboratory response is an insufficient proxy for field effect, and short-term efficacy does not establish durable programme performance. Major limitations include taxonomic and system specificity, heterogeneous endpoints, incomplete reporting of spatial context and delivery persistence, and limited repeated-exposure validation. The principal implication is that semiochemical tactics should be selected, combined, and governed through objective-led evidence chains with separate behavioural, demographic, crop, operational, and adaptation criteria.
%U https://easletters.com/article/attract-repel-confuse-or-recruit-choosing-semiochemical-strategies-that-align-insect-behaviour-w-n6axdmh8fqp7k1z