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Innate Olfactory Responses of Asobara japonica Toward Fruits Infested by the Invasive Spotted Wing Drosophila

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Abstract

Insect parasitoids are often manipulated to improve biological control programs for various arthropod pests. Volatile compounds can be a relevant cue used by most parasitoid hymenoptera for host or host microhabitat location. Here, we studied olfactory responses of the braconid Asobara japonica Belokobylskij, an Asiatic endoparasitoid of the invasive pest Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura), toward its host and host substrates. Adult A. japonica displayed an innate attraction to undescribed volatile cues from infested host fruits irrespectively of the juvenile rearing experience, i.e. they respond to a novel cue subsequently used for microhabitat selection. These data suggest that A. japonica parasitoids mass-reared on artificial diet and factitious host (D. melanogaster) can successfully locate their hosts. Naïve female parasitoids did not show a preference towards any of the tested host media. However, the enforced adult experience with the rearing host medium modified the olfactory preference patterns toward non-natal host fruits. These findings provide evidence of associative learning during the adult stage of A. japonica, and demonstrate its plasticity in exploiting the volatiles from various fruits infested by D. suzukii.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the California Cherry Board, USDA APHIS (Farm bill, fund 14-8130-0463), National Institute of Food and Agriculture USDA Specialty Crops Research Initiative (No. 2015-51181-24252), University of California Agricultural and Natural for partially funding this study, the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (PRIN project GEISCA, 2010CXXHJE_004); foreign exploration was funded by a USDA-NIFA (2010-51181-21167). We thank Kees van Achterberg (National Museum of Natural History, Leiden, The Netherlands) and Emilio Guerrieri (Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection, CNR, Portici, Italy) for the confirmation of the parasitoid specific identification; Hiromi Murata and John Hutchins (University of California, Berkeley) for their assistance during the bioassays and preliminary colony maintenance, respectively. Antonio Biondi received funding from the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013/ under REA grant agreement 318246.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94709, USA

    Antonio Biondi, Xingeng Wang & Kent M. Daane

  2. Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Catania, Via Santa Sofia 100, 95123, Catania, Italy

    Antonio Biondi, Lucia Zappalà & Gaetano Siscaro

  3. Department of Horticulture, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, 97331, USA

    Jeffrey C. Miller, Betsey Miller & Vaughn W. Walton

  4. Tree Fruit Research and Extension Center, Washington State University, Wenatchee, WA, 98801, USA

    Peter W. Shearer

  5. USDA Agricultural Research Service, Beneficial Insects Introduction Research Unit, Newark, DE, 19713, USA

    Kim A. Hoelmer

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  1. Antonio Biondi
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Correspondence to Kent M. Daane.

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Biondi, A., Wang, X., Miller, J.C. et al. Innate Olfactory Responses of Asobara japonica Toward Fruits Infested by the Invasive Spotted Wing Drosophila. J Insect Behav 30, 495–506 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10905-017-9636-y

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