Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Journal of Pest Science

Abstract

Drosophila suzukii is widely studied because of its status as a global pest of berries and soft fruits. Environmental conditions and access to food resources impact the physiology and ftness of D. suzukii; these factors could also affect dispersal. Flight mills are a convenient tool for measuring and comparing the fight performance of insects. In this study, two experiments examined the efects of diet and humidity on D. suzukii fight performance using custom-built fight mills, and a third experiment compared the energy reserves of D. suzukii flown or not flown on fight mills. Over all fight assays, the median fight distance and duration were 27.16 m and 2.37 min, respectively, and the mean fight velocity was 0.18 m/s. The maximum fight distance and duration by an individual were 1.75 km and 2.35 h, respectively. Drosophila suzukii provisioned with blossoms, fruits, or standard laboratory diets few farther distances and longer durations than starved flies. While starvation was associated with reduced fight performance, there were no observed differences between diet types. It remains unclear whether D. suzukii consistently use lipids, glycogen, sugar, or another energy source for fight because tethered individuals may not have flown enough to deplete energy reserves. Humidity did not affect fight performance of D. suzukii within a~2 h test period. These data indicate that most D. suzukii are likely to remain within limited area (e.g., within a field) but that some individuals can disperse long distances (field to field spread).

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10340-018-1013-x

Publication Date

12-2018

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