We discover and examine within a wide phylogenetic perspective spatial neophobia, avoidance of untrodden terrain, in fruit flies, in an experimental setup that reduces the gap between the field and the laboratory. In our setup, fruit flies use a natal fruit as their origin, freely exploring for days their surroundings, which consists of a mixture of trodden and untrodden terrain. The interface ...

Nanoparticles and nanotechnology have been applied in agriculture, including for plant nutrition improvement, and pest control. Little research has been conducted on nano-calcium carbonate in plant protection and nutrition. In this study, we compared the effects of nano-calcium carbonate and colloidal calcium carbonate and found that nano-calcium carbonate treatments were better at increasing c...

The interaction between insects and micro-organisms is multifaceted, ranging from pathogenicity to complex mutualistic relations. The increasing number of studies addressing the bacteria-insect interface is gradually revealing the intricacy of these interactions (Bourtzis and Miller 2003, 2009). Until recently, the association between the tephritid fruit flies and bacteria received relatively l...

Rhagoletis pomonella is a model for sympatric speciation (divergence without geographic isolation) by means of host-plant shifts. Many Rhagoletis species are known to use fruit odor as a key olfactory cue to distinguish among their respective host plants. Because Rhagoletis rendezvous on or near the unabscised fruit of their hosts to mate, behavioral preferences for fruit odor translate directl...

Fruit flies inhabit a wide range of latitudes, requiring adaptation to the varying local climates. A recent study reports evidence that the ability of North American flies to endure the winter involves adaptive polymorphism of the couch potato gene.

Male fruit flies sing to females with quiet, close-range wing vibrations. A new study has found that the flies' antennal ears show active tuning to the species-specific frequencies of songs.

The use of simple and economic traps with long lasting lure dispensers is key for implementation of mass trapping strategies against pestiferous fruit flies. Simplicity, cost, ease of assembly, storage and transportation were considered during evaluation of a folding conical trap for mass trapping the Mexican fruit fly, Anastrepha ludens. The application of deltamethrin to the lid of the trap r...

The xanthene dye phloxine B (D&C Red #28) bait was sprayed against fruit flies in mango orchards in 1996 and 1997. The flies used for testing were Mexican fruit fly, Anastrepha ludens (Loew), West Indian fruit fly, Anastrepha obliqua (Macquart), and Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata (Wiedeman). Results of the experiments indicate that the toxic efficacy of phloxine B against these fru...

The Chinese citrus fruit fly, Bactrocera (Tetradacus) minax (Enderlein), is one of the major citrus pests in Bhutan and can cause >50% mandarin (Citrus reticulata Blanco) fruit drop. As part of the development of a management strategy for the fly in mandarin orchards, population monitoring and experimental manipulations were carried out to determine: (i) adult emergence period; (ii) adult pheno...