Abstract
<title>Abstract</title> <p> The invasive Serpentine Leafminer, <italic>Liriomyza huidobrensis</italic> , is a highly polyphagous pest that threatens protected and open-field horticulture worldwide and has recently established in Australia. Management depends heavily on synthetic pesticides, but escalating resistance and non-target impacts make behaviour-based, IPM-compatible alternatives a priority. Push-pull strategies, which repel pests from a crop while attracting them to a sink, offer such an alternative, but their development for this pest has been constrained by a lack of knowledge of the plant-derived volatiles that govern host acceptance. Here we identify candidate push and pull compounds for <italic>L. huidobrensis</italic> by integrating, for the first time in this species, host preference assays, plant volatile profiling by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), electrophysiological screening by gas chromatography-electroantennographic detection (GC-EAD), and behavioural validation of individual compounds. Feeding and oviposition differed markedly among plants; petunia and cucumber were highly accepted, while salvia and Russian sage were consistently rejected. GC-MS revealed monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes as dominant compounds. GC-EAD identified ten antennally active compounds. In behavioural bioassays, <italic>D</italic> -limonene, farnesyl acetate, and <italic>p</italic> -cymene, significantly suppressed feeding and oviposition, identifying them as candidate ‘push’ agents, while oleic acid significantly enhanced both, identifying it as a candidate ‘pull’ agent. These laboratory results, obtained at a single screening-derived concentration, establish a validated chemical foundation and proof of concept for a species-specific push-pull management of <italic>L. huidobrensis</italic> . </p>