Diurnal and Seasonal Activity Patterns of Drosophilid Species (Diptera: Drosophilidae) Present in Blackberry Agroecosystems With a Focus on Spotted-Wing Drosophila

Abstract

Drosophilid species with different life histories have been shown to exhibit similar behavioral patterns related to locating and utilizing resources such as hosts, mates, and food sources. Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura) is an invasive species that differs from other frugivorous drosophilids in that females lay eggs in ripe and ripening fruits instead of overripe or rotten fruits. We hypothesized that there may be diurnal and/or seasonal patterns associated with the movement of drosophilid species into and out of crop fields and their attraction to fermentation-odor-based monitoring traps, and that D. suzukii would conform to similar patterns. To test these hypotheses, we deployed passive, 2-headed Malaise traps between crop fields and wooded edges to simultaneously catch flies moving into and out of crop fields. We also deployed monitoring traps with a fermentation-based bait between crop fields and wooded edges and within crop rows. Traps were deployed weekly in June–August in 2014 and 2015 at two commercial blackberry farm in Cleveland County, NC, and were checked hourly for 24 h, except during darkness. Both D. suzukii and other drosophilid species moved between crop fields and wooded edges and were attracted to monitoring traps primarily during the morning and evening hours. Whereas other drosophilids were captured in traps throughout the season, few D. suzukii were caught in traps until early to mid-July in both years and increased as the season progressed. Understanding D. suzukii movement and activity patterns is essential for the development of effective management strategies.

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“…In the field, we monitored both the seasonal and diel activity of a well-studied pest species: spotted-wing drosophila ( D. suzukii ). Like others before[21], we concluded that wild D. suzukii was crepuscular (Fig. 5).…”

“…To test the potential of the Sticky Pis to monitor wild populations of free-moving insects in the field, we deployed ten traps in a blackberry field inhabited by the well-studied and important pest species D. suzukii (see Methods section). Like D. melanogaster, D. suzukii has been characterised as crepuscular both in the laboratory [20] and, with manual observations, in the field [21]. Since capture rates can be very low without attractants [21], we baited half (five) of our traps with apple cider vinegar (see Methods section).…”

“…Like D. melanogaster, D. suzukii has been characterised as crepuscular both in the laboratory [20] and, with manual observations, in the field [21]. Since capture rates can be very low without attractants [21], we baited half (five) of our traps with apple cider vinegar (see Methods section). In addition to D. suzukii, we wanted to simultaneously describe the activity of lesser-known species in the same community.…”

Sticky Pi is a high-frequency smart trap that enables the study of insect circadian activity under natural conditions

“…suzukii has been characterised as crepuscular both in the laboratory [ 21 ] and, with manual observations, in the field [ 22 ]. Since capture rates can be very low without attractants [ 22 ], we baited half (5) of our traps with apple cider vinegar (see Methods section). In addition to D .…”

Seasonal Abundance Changes of Spotted Wing <em>Drosophila</em> in Neighbouring Habitats in Hungary

“…The effect of the vicinity of the forested regions on the abundance of SWD in the crops was demonstrated by several authors [7,8,9]. Swoboda-Bhattarai [10] investigated the daily activity pattern of SWD movement between crop and neighbouring noncrop habitats. SWD was found to change between fruit orchards ripening in different times, namely to move from mid-summer to the fig, apricot, pear orchards, and from the beginning of autumn to the citrus and noncrop areas [11].…”