Title
Fruit volatiles mediate differential attraction of Drosophila suzukii to wild and cultivated blueberries
Date Issued
01 September 2021
Access level
metadata only access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Urbaneja-Bernat P.
Cloonan K.
Zhang A.
Rodriguez-Saona C.
University of São Paulo
Publisher(s)
Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Abstract
Native to the northeast USA, highbush blueberry is a crop domesticated for close to 100 years and that has been selected mainly for high yields and bigger fruit. We hypothesized that, due to domestication and associated agronomic selection (i.e., cultivation practices), cultivated blueberries differ from their wild ancestors in fruit volatile emissions, affecting the response of a frugivorous pest. To test this hypothesis, we compared the attraction of adult spotted-wing drosophila (Drosophila suzukii) to wild and cultivated blueberry fruit volatiles in choice assays. We also conducted headspace volatile chemical analysis and electroantennographic detection (EAD) analysis to identify and quantify any antennally active compounds. For this, fruit from wild and cultivated blueberries, growing in proximity, was sampled from six farms located in the Pinelands National Reserve (New Jersey, USA)—a blueberry-producing region with a forest understory consisting largely of wild blueberries. On a per gram basis, we found that wild blueberries are more attractive to D. suzukii flies and have higher volatile emission rates than cultivated blueberries. Nine EAD-active compounds from wild blueberries (isobutyl acetate, ethyl butyrate, ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, ethyl 3-methylbutyrate, hexanal, isoamyl acetate, 3-hydroxybutanone (acetoin), 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one, and 1-hexanol) were attractive individually and as a blend to D. suzukii flies. However, a 4-component blend composed of isoamyl acetate, acetoin, 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one, and 1-hexanol was more attractive to D. suzukii than the 9-component blend. Altogether, our results show that the domestication/cultivation of blueberries is associated with lower rates of fruit volatile emissions, which has resulted in decreased attraction of a frugivorous pest, D. suzukii.
Start page
1249
End page
1263
Volume
94
Issue
4
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Ecología Agricultura
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85099556254
Source
Journal of Pest Science
ISSN of the container
16124758
Sponsor(s)
The study was partially supported by funding from the USDA NIFA Crop Protection and Pest Management (CPPM) program (award no. 2015-70006-24152), the USDA NIFA Specialty Crops Research Initiative (SCRI) program (award no. 2015-51181-24252), the New Jersey Blueberry Research Council, and the Hatch projects no. NJ08252 and NJ08140 to CR-S.
Sources of information: Directorio de Producción Científica Scopus