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Title: Synergistic trap response of the false stable fly and little house fly (Diptera: Muscidae) to acetic acid and ethanol, two principal sugar fermentation volatiles

Author
item Landolt, Peter
item Cha, Dong
item ZACK, RICHARD - Washington State University

Submitted to: Environmental Entomology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/2/2015
Publication Date: 10/1/2015
Citation: Landolt, P.J., Cha, D.H., Zack, R.S. 2015. Synergistic trap response of the false stable fly and little house fly (Diptera: Muscidae) to acetic acid and ethanol, two principal sugar fermentation volatiles. Environmental Entomology. 44(5):1441-1448.

Interpretive Summary: Spotted wing drosophila (SWD), an invasive pest of numerous fruit crops, is detected and monitored by growers and pest managers with the use of traps. Some fermented food type baits used for SWD traps attract large numbers of non-target insects, such as wasps, moths and other types of flies, making the process of sorting and identifying SWD difficult and time consuming. Researchers at the USDA-ARS laboratory in Wapato, Washington, in collaboration with personnel at the Department of Entomology, Washington State University, Pullman, are developing more specific chemical attractants, and are investigating the chemistry of attraction of different types of insects to these fermented food baits, in order to determine improvements to the specificity of lures for SWD. They determined that attraction of muscoid flies to these baits is due to a synergistic fly response to the combination of acetic acid and ethanol in some of those baits. These results provide the means to eliminate much of the non target flies in traps for SWD, by minimizing either acetic acid or ethanol from SWD lures. Such a lure might reduce SWD monitoring costs where captures of non-target flies are a problem.

Technical Abstract: Spotted wing drosophila (SWD), an invasive pest of numerous fruit crops, is detected and monitored by growers and pest managers with the use of traps. Some fermented food type baits used for SWD traps attract large numbers of non-target insects, such as wasps, moths and other types of flies, making the process of sorting and identifying SWD difficult and time consuming. Researchers at the USDA-ARS laboratory in Wapato, Washington, in collaboration with personnel at the Department of Entomology, Washington State University, Pullman, are developing more specific chemical attractants, and are investigating the chemistry of attraction of different types of insects to these fermented food baits, in order to determine improvements to the specificity of lures for SWD. They determined that attraction of muscoid flies to these baits is due to a synergistic fly response to the combination of acetic acid and ethanol in some of those baits. These results provide the means to eliminate much of the non target flies in traps for SWD, by minimizing either acetic acid or ethanol from SWD lures. Such a lure might reduce SWD monitoring costs where captures of non-target flies are a problem.