Abstract
Simple SummaryThe spotted wing drosophila, Drosophila suzukii, is an invasive pest species from Southeast Asia that was recently introduced in parts of Europe and North America. As D. suzukii lays its eggs in ripening soft-skinned fruit, it causes significant damage to a wide variety of summer fruit, including cherries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, grapes, plums and strawberries. Therefore, there is a need for an effective attractant to improve monitoring or allow for mass trapping of this fly. Because blackberry is one of the preferred host crops of D. suzukii, the volatiles which this berry emits were analyzed via GC-MS in order to identify the key compounds with an attractive effect. In total, 33 volatiles were tested of which six proved to be significantly attractive to D. suzukii. Of these compounds, acetaldehyde, hexyl acetate, linalool and myrtenol proved to be most attractive. Overall, these results can form a valuable basis to further develop more effective and selective lures to monitor or mass trap this pest. The spotted wing drosophila, Drosophila suzukii, is an invasive pest species from Southeast Asia that was recently introduced in Europe and North America. As this fruit fly lays its eggs in ripening soft-skinned fruit, it causes great damage to a variety of crops, including cherries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, grapes, plums and strawberries. Consequently, there is a great demand for an effective and species-specific lure, which requires the development of successful attractants. Until now, there is no lure available that is species-specific and can detect the presence of D. suzukii before infestation. As blackberry (Rubus fruticosus) is one of the preferred host crops of D. suzukii, the volatile compounds of R. fruticosus berries are here identified and quantified using multiple headspace SPME (solid phase micro extraction) GC-MS (gas chromatography–mass spectrometry). Subsequently, the attractivity of 33 of the identified compounds was tested with a two-choice laboratory bioassay. Acetaldehyde, hexyl acetate, linalool, myrtenol, L-limonene and camphene came out as significantly attractive to D. suzukii. The first four attractive compounds induced the strongest effect and therefore provided the best prospects to be implemented in a potential lure. These findings could contribute towards the development of more effective attractants for monitoring and mass trapping D. suzukii.
Highlights
Drosophila suzukii is an emerging pest species that originated in Southeast Asia, but subsequently invaded large parts of Europe and North America, where it is causing extensive harm to the fruit growing industry
The polyphagous nature and broad host range of D. suzukii further mean that it causes extensive damage to a wide variety of soft and thin-skinned fruits, including cherries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, grapes, plums and strawberries [2,4]
The flies were subsequently reared in the Laboratory of Socioecology and Social Evolution (KU Leuven, Belgium) in 175 mL containers (Greiner Bio-one, which are containers for plant tissue culture) on a medium consisting of 6% sugar, 1.5% yeast, 0.7% agar, 10% polenta and 0.1% methyl 4-hydroxybenzoate (Sigma-Aldrich, Darmstadt, Germany, CAS 99-76-3) [19], which served as a food source and as a site for oviposition
Summary
Drosophila suzukii is an emerging pest species that originated in Southeast Asia, but subsequently invaded large parts of Europe and North America, where it is causing extensive harm to the fruit growing industry. Available fruit fly traps mostly make use of attractive fruit fermentation products, such as wine or apple cider vinegar [18,21,22] Such traditional attractants lack two important aspects of a good lure. They generally fail to timely detect the pest species before the infestation develops, which means the lure needs to be highly attractive when population density is low. Some of the commercial lures available can detect the presence of D. suzukii up till 21 days before fruit infestation These only work with specific fruit crops and still have a relatively low selectivity [24].
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