Scientists may have found a solution to the global bedbug epidemic - a set of chemical attractants, or pheromones, that lure the bedbugs into traps, and keep them there.
Researchers from the Simon Fraser University in Canada are working with Victoria-based Contech Enterprises Inc to develop the first effective and affordable bait and trap for detecting and monitoring bedbug infestations.
They expect it to be commercially available next year.
"The biggest challenge in dealing with bedbugs is to detect the infestation at an early stage," said Simon Fraser University biology professor Gerhard Gries.
"This trap will help landlords, tenants, and pest-control professionals determine whether premises have a bedbug problem, so that they can treat it quickly. It will also be useful for monitoring the treatment's effectiveness," Gries said.
Over the last two decades the common bedbug (Cimex lectularius), once thought eradicated in industrialised countries, has reappeared as a global scourge.
The insects are infesting not just low-income housing but also expensive hotels and apartments, and public venues.
Yet until now, tools for detecting and monitoring these pests have been expensive and technically challenging to use.
Gries began his research eight years ago looking for pheromones that could lure and trap bedbugs.
He worked with his wife Regine Gries, a Simon Fraser University biologist. Regine ran all of the lab and field experiments and endured 180,000 bedbug bites in order to feed the large bedbug colony required for their research.
The researchers initially found a pheromone blend that attracted bedbugs in lab experiments, but not in bedbug-infested apartments.
The Gries then teamed up with SFU chemist Robert Britton, who studied the infinitesimal amounts of chemicals Regine had isolated from shed bedbug skin, looking for the chemical clues as to why the bedbugs find the presence of skin so appealing in a shelter.
Britton, his students and the Gries duo finally discovered that histamine, a molecule with unusual properties that eluded identification through traditional methods, signals "safe shelter" to bedbugs.
Once in contact with the histamine, the bedbugs stay put whether or not they have recently fed on a human host.
However, neither histamine alone nor in combination with previously identified pheromone components effectively attracted and trapped bedbugs in infested apartments.
So, Regine began analysing airborne volatile compounds from bedbug feces as an alternate source of the missing components.
Five months and 35 experiments later, she found three new volatiles that had never before been reported for bedbugs.
These three components, together with two components from their earlier research and histamine, became the highly effective lure they were seeking.
