Genome Identified When Corn Alerts Wasps to Come Help

In New York, researchers looked at 26 varieties of corn and have been able to determine which genome helps signal to parasitic wasps that they are being attacked by caterpillars. The smelly signals that the corn sends out are terpenes, like linalool, a floral scent often used in perfumes, and nerolidol, a woodsy scent. The scent attracts the wasps that then lay their larvae on the caterpillars. The wasp larvae eat the insides thus killing the pesky caterpillars and helping protect the corn from further damage. Now that researchers know which genome causes that alerting scent to attract the wasps, they can look for ways to breed it into corn varieties that don’t have that gene so they too can fight back against the damaging caterpillars.