Responses to odor X (either P or K), RX, varied from a minimum, mX, to a maximum, MX, because of the olfactometer properties.
We provide a detailed description of the olfactometer construction, a list of its individual parts and prices, as well as potential modifications to the design.
The common, brown garden snail (Cornu aspersum), with its known attraction to carrot, was used to verify the validity of the olfactometer design.
The flow outlet from each source flask was divided into two branches, one going to an olfactometer input and the other to the mixing zone of the semiochemical delivery system, so that a mixture of P+K could be directed to a third input of the olfactometer.
For both fMRI and behavioral studies, we employed breathing cues synchronized to the delivery of the olfactometer.
Treatments associated with the right and left branches of the olfactometer were exchanged after every fifth beetle.
By a flowmeter, the airflow through each of the olfactometer arms was maintained at 250 ml/min.
White noise of 80 dB (A) was presented binaurally over earplugs (Etymotic Research, ER3-14A), in order to prevent the participants from hearing the switching valves of the olfactometer.
A χ2 test was used to determine the significance of the differences between the numbers of parasitoids choosing each arm of the olfactometer [7].
As expected under our experimental conditions, the calling pheromone flow attracted males from a distance to the end of the olfactometer arms whatever the sex of the lures.
