Ally Harari

Background

About Ally Harari

My research interests focus on understanding how ecological conditions affect the operation of sexual selection on various mating systems. In my position as a researcher in the Volcani Center, an applied research institute, I combine theory and applied approaches in search for environmentally friendly solutions to agricultural pests. My ultimate goal in these studies is to reduce the damage caused by various pest species through the exploitation of the pest reproductive systems. Manipulations of the pest mating behavior in specific junctions lead to a reduction in its reproductive success with the end results of substantial decrease in pest population and in damage to crop. In accordance with this goal, my “basic science” studies are aimed at generating the ground for my research in the “applied science”. Currently the organisms I study include various moth species: Tuta absoluta, the European berry moth, the honeydew moth, the false codling moth, the carob moth and the pink bollworm and some beetle species as Coccotrypes dactyliperda Capnodis tenebrionis and the weevil Diaprepes abbreviatus. Specialties: Sexual selection, mating strategy, chemical ecology, mating behavior.