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Synergy Research
Our passion and focus at Synergy remains in forestry pests because using semiochemicals for forestry pests is significantly different than for urban or agricultural pests. At Synergy we have the background knowledge about the forestry, forestry pests and their semiochemicals.
Within our focus in forestry, our scope is broad. We are looking for new and more effective active ingredients to use in lures and tree protection products. This work is facilitated by having specific personnel and a chemistry lab at our disposal. We are actively conducting field trials both independently as well as with selected collaborators. We keep abreast of new research by maintaining contact with the leading researchers in Canada and the USA.
Synergy has a variety of research projects on going. We are interested in expanding the repertoire of semiochemical tools and techniques available for the major tree killing Dendroctonus and Ips species in North America. To this end we have developed a novel approach for finding new bioactive semiochemical host volatiles libraries. Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada (NSERC) has awarded Dr. Robert Britton of Simon Fraser University an Engage grant. to facilitate the identification of novel terpenoids that Synergy and our collaborators in the USDA Forest Service have discovered. There are many novel compounds which now need to be fully characterized. The collaboration between the Britton group at SFU and Synergy Semiochemical Corp is expected to provide advances to bark beetle chemical ecology
In conjunction with the novel terpinoids, we at Synergy are also keen to understand structure and activity relationships within forest pest semiochemicals. We have already synthesized and tested some bark beetle pheromone analogs.
With increased global trade comes significantly higher risk of introduction and establishment of exotic pest species. History has demonstrated exotic species introductions often have detrimental ecosystem impacts. This emphasizes the need for early detection tools for invasive forestry pests, which is also a focus at Synergy. We are keen to improve semiochemical detection tools for invasive species that could threaten our forests. We have not limited ourselves to conifers and also are looking closely at host volatiles for broad leaved trees which invasive pests might utilize as kairomones.
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