Drosophila suzukii energetic pathways are differently modulated by nutritional geometry in males and females

Abstract

As a polyphagous pest, Drosophila suzukii has a variety of host fruits available for feeding and oviposition, but how the nutritional geometry of different hosts influences its metabolism is still poorly understood. This work aimed to evaluate how D. suzukii metabolic and transcriptional pathways are influenced by feeding on different host fruits, and how sex influences these responses. Adult flies were allowed to feed on five different fruit-based media. Lipids, glucose, glycogen, and energy pathways-associated gene expression, were quantified. Females showed an energetic metabolism easily adaptable to the food’s nutritional characteristics; in contrast, males’ energetic metabolism was particularly influenced by food, predominantly those fed on raspberry media who showed changes in glucose levels and in the expression of genes associated with metabolic pathways, suggesting activation of gluconeogenesis and trehaloneogenesis as a result of nutritional deficiency. Here we present novel insight into how D. suzukii’s energetic pathways are modulated depending on fruits’ nutritional geometry and sex. While the females showed high adaptability in their energetic metabolism to the diet, males were more feeding-sensitive. These findings might be used not only to control this pest population but to better advise producers to invest in less suitable fruits based on the hosts’ nutritional geometry.

Towards a Sustainable Management of the Spotted-Wing Drosophila: Disclosing the Effects of Two Spider Venom Peptides on Drosophila suzukii

“…Eggs and larvae were obtained by collecting ripe-infested blueberries from this field. The colony was housed in plastic vials containing standard drosophila cornmeal diet [1.5% ( w / v ) agar, 4% ( w / v ) brewer’s yeast, 8% ( w / v ) cornmeal, 10% ( w / v ) sugar, 0.08% ( w / v ) methyl 4-hydroxybenzoate, 0.15% ( v / v ) orthophosphoric acid, and distilled water (dH 2 O)] [ 30 ], at 23 °C under a 16:8 h of light:dark photoperiod, and was transferred to new vials every week. In every survival experiment, 2–5 days-old flies were used (five males and five females per experimental vial).…”

Winter Is (Not) Coming: Is Climate Change Helping Drosophila suzukii Overwintering?

“…The capacity of D. suzukii females to feed and lay eggs in a wide variety of cultivated and non-cultivated host species allows this pest to have access to reproduction sites and feeding sources year-round [22][23][24][25]. We have recently demonstrated that the nutrition source modulates D. suzukii's energetic pathways, in a way dependent on the fruits' nutritional geometry and sex, and that females showed higher adaptability in their energetic metabolism shift to the diet [25]. Energetically more suitable hosts may provide better conditions for feeding and development success of the offspring, and support D. suzukii host preferences [26,27].…”

Optimizing toxic bait composition and application to control Drosophila suzukii

“…time of the year, type of crop) (Lee et al, 2013). Besides the environmental factors present across dates, it would be important to take into consideration the availability of alternative food resources that might interfere with the bait spray efficacy as it has been suggested that D. suzukii females can rapidly shift their metabolism to adapt to the available food sources (Sario et al, 2022). Also, it would be important to test the baits on non-target (beneficial) organisms, such as pollinators and natural enemies.…”