Preference and performance of Drosophila suzukii on Prunus species: A potential eco-friendly pest management tool

Effects of Variety and Grape Berry Condition of Vitis vinifera on Preference Behavior and Performance of Drosophila suzukii

“…Moreover, damage of berries from little accepted varieties turned these more susceptible. Importantly, we show that the pure presence of D. suzukii does not necessarily result in oviposition or successful offspring performance, which is in line with previous research on grapes [3,42] and in another fruit [12].…”

“…A positive relationship of all three tested parameters was only found in the choice assay between "Regent" vs. "Pinot Noir". Our findings are in line with Alhmedi et al (2019) [12] who observed that flight activity, egg-laying behavior, and offspring performance of D. suzukii do not match on two Prunus species. Olazcuaga et al (2019) [18] found no correlation between the preference and adult emergence in choice tests with the artificial medium of 12 different fruit species.…”

“…Various polyphagous insect species, especially species becoming invasive, have been found not to conform to the preference-performance hypothesis [4,50]. This might be partially explained by other factors such as host plant abundance, predation avoidance, or natal host plant experience influencing females' host selection [12,51].…”

“…For D. suzukii, positive relationships between adult preferences and offspring performance were indeed observed, e.g., in bioassays with wild and cultivated blueberries and in choice and no-choice assays using artificial diets with different protein-to-carbohydrate ratios [26,30]. In contrast, preference and performance did not match on different Prunus species [12] or when testing purees of different fruits [18].…”

“…Recent studies indicate that D. suzukii shows preferences for certain fruit species and varieties but not all preferred hosts are suitable for larval development and are, thus, so-called dead-end hosts [4,5,10]. While previous research has mainly focused on the susceptibility of berry crops [11][12][13], little information is available on the infestation of grape berries, an only occasionally infested host [14][15][16], as well as on factors driving differences in susceptibility between host species and varieties [17][18][19]. The prevailing uncertainty about the risk of damage by D. suzukii arising for wine production has resulted in management strategies mainly based on the prophylactic use of broad-spectrum insecticides.…”