{"id":178556,"date":"2021-02-15T13:00:03","date_gmt":"2021-02-15T10:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/invasive-flies-prefer-untouched-territory-when-laying-eggs\/"},"modified":"2021-02-15T13:00:03","modified_gmt":"2021-02-15T10:00:03","slug":"invasive-flies-prefer-untouched-territory-when-laying-eggs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/invasive-flies-prefer-untouched-territory-when-laying-eggs\/","title":{"rendered":"#Invasive flies prefer untouched territory when laying eggs"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Invasive flies prefer untouched territory when laying eggs<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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\n An invasive spotted wing drosophila (Drosophila suzukii) on a raspberry. Credit: Hannah Burrack, NC State University
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A recent study finds that the invasive spotted wing drosophila (Drosophila suzukii<\/i>) prefers to lay its eggs in places that no other spotted wing flies have visited. The finding raises questions about how the flies can tell whether a piece of fruit is virgin territory\u2014and what that might mean for pest control.<\/p>\n


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D. suzukii<\/i> is a fruit fly that is native to east Asia, but has spread rapidly across North America, South America, Africa and Europe over the past 10-15 years. The pest species prefers to lay its eggs in ripe fruit, which poses problems for fruit growers, since consumers don’t want to buy infested fruit.<\/p>\n

To avoid consumer rejection, there are extensive measures in place to avoid infestation, and to prevent infested fruit from reaching the marketplace.<\/p>\n

“Ultimately, we’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars in potential crop losses and increases in pest-management costs each year in the United States,” says Hannah Burrack, co-author of a paper on the study and a professor of entomology at North Carolina State University. “These costs have driven some small growers out of business.<\/p>\n

“The first step toward addressing an invasive pest species is understanding it. And two fundamental questions that we had are: Which plants will this species attack? And why does it pick those plants?”<\/p>\n

One of the things that researchers noticed when observing infestations on farms was that the species’ egg-laying behavior was different, depending on the size of the infestation.<\/p>\n

When D. suzukii<\/i> populations were small, there would only be a few eggs laid in each piece of fruit, and they would only be in ripe fruit. If there were more D. suzukii<\/i> present, more eggs would be laid in each piece of fruit. The researchers had also noticed that large populations of D. suzukii<\/i> were also more likely to lay eggs in fruit that wasn’t ripe.<\/p>\n

To better understand the egg-laying behavior of D. suzukii<\/i>, the researchers conducted a series<\/a> of experiments. And the results surprised them.<\/p>\n

Specifically, the researchers found that, given a choice, female D. suzukii<\/i> preferred to lay their eggs in fruit that other flies had never visited.<\/p>\n

“It doesn’t matter if the other flies lay eggs,” Burrack says. “It doesn’t even matter if the other flies are male or female. It only matters if other flies have touched a piece of fruit. If untouched fruit is available, D. suzukii<\/i> will reject fruit that other flies have visited.<\/p>\n

“We’re not sure if the flies leave behind a chemical or bacterial marker, or something else entirely\u2014but the flies can tell where other flies have been.”<\/p>\n

The researchers say that the next step is to determine what, exactly, the D. suzukii<\/i> are detecting.<\/p>\n

“If we can get a better understanding of what drives the behavior of this species, that could inform the development of new pest-control techniques,” Burrack says. “We’re not making any promises, but this is a significant crop pest\u2014and the more we know, the better.”<\/p>\n

The paper, “Social<\/a> signals mediate oviposition site selection in Drosophila suzukii,” is published in the journal Scientific Reports<\/i>.<\/p>\n\n

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‘Breaking bad’: Insect pests in the making\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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\n More information:<\/strong>
\n Scientific Reports<\/i> (2021). DOI: 10.1038\/s41598-021-83354-2<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n
\n Provided by
\n North Carolina State University
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Citation<\/strong>:
\n Invasive flies prefer untouched territory when laying eggs (2021, February 15)
\n retrieved 15 February 2021
\n from https:\/\/phys.org\/news<\/a>\/2021-02-invasive-flies-untouched-territory-eggs.html<\/p>\n

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