The southern pine beetle, Dendroctonus frontalis Zimmermann (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae), is among the most destructive bark beetle pests of pines (Pinaceae) of the southeast and mid-Atlantic United States of America, Mexico, and Central America. Numerous volatile compounds can stimulate or reduce attraction of the beetle, but efforts to incorporate these into effective, practical technologies for pest management have yielded mixed results. Attractants have been incorporated into lures used in monitoring traps that are employed operationally to forecast outbreaks and detect emerging populations. The attraction inhibitor, verbenone, shows efficacy for suppressing southern pine beetle infestations but has not yet been adopted operationally. No effective semiochemical tree protectant has been developed for the beetle. We discuss complexities in the chemical ecology of the beetle that likely have impeded research and development of semiochemical management tools, and we describe basic science gaps that may hinder further progress if not addressed. We also report some supporting, original experimental data indicating (1) that a verbenone device can inhibit the beetle’s response to sources of attractant in a radius of at least several metres, (2) similar olfactory responses by the beetle to both enantiomers of verbenone, and (3) that pheromone background can cause conflicting results in semiochemical field tests.

南部的松甲虫，Dendroctonus frontalisZimmermann（鞘翅目：Curculionidae：Scolytinae）是美利坚合众国东南部，中部大西洋，墨西哥和中美洲的最具破坏性的松树皮甲虫（Pinaceae）。许多挥发性化合物可以刺激或减少甲虫的吸引力，但是将其纳入有效，实用的有害生物管理技术的努力却产生了不同的结果。诱饵已被纳入用于监视陷阱的诱剂中，诱饵可用于预测疫情暴发和发现新出现的种群。吸引力抑制剂马鞭草酮（Verbenone）显示出抑制南方松树甲虫感染的功效，但尚未在操作中采用。尚未为甲虫开发有效的化学信息树保护剂。我们讨论了甲虫化学生态学中的复杂性，这些复杂性可能会阻碍符号化学管理工具的研究和开发，并且我们描述了如果不加以解决可能会阻碍其进一步发展的基本科学空白。我们还报告了一些支持性的原始实验数据，这些数据表明：（1）马鞭草酮装置可以在至少几米的半径内抑制甲虫对引诱剂的反应，（2）甲虫对马鞭草酮的两种对映体的嗅觉相似， （3）信息素背景可能会在化学信息学现场测试中引起矛盾的结果。