Drosophila suzukii is an invasive vinegar fly that has become a serious pest of soft skinned fruit throughout North America. Unique among Drosophila species, female D. suzukii have a serrated ovipositor that enables them to lay eggs in ripe or ripening fruit, a food resource lacking in protein. Wild yeast symbionts may provide critical nutrients for D. suzukii; yeasts are an important source of protein that impact the survival and development of many Drosophila. Understanding how these symbionts interact with D. suzukii will provide important insights into its life history and could lead to the development of more sustainable pest management tactics, such as species-specific lures for monitoring or developing targeted insecticides. Previous work surveying D. suzukii gut microbes has confirmed that both adults and larvae feed on yeast, with yeast communities across multiple sites dominated by one species, Hanseniaspora uvarum. Using both field-isolated yeast strains and baker’s yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), a common model organism for Drosophila-yeast interactions, we evaluated larval D. suzukii yeast preferences and how individual yeast species impact life-history traits. Larvae exhibited a strong preference for H. uvarum over other yeasts, and wild yeast species were generally preferred over baker’s yeast. These feeding choices may be driven by a perceivable difference in resource quality. We expect D. suzukii larvae to prefer yeast resources that best support their own fitness and development; links between larval yeast preference and performance have been reported for other species of Drosophila. When D. suzukii were reared using an amicrobial diet, egg to adult development time significantly increased compared to diet containing yeasts. Different yeast species may vary in the resources they provide and may impact D. suzukii fitness, as measured by survival rates, adult body mass, and reproductive capacity.

Understanding interactions between Drosophila suzukii and it yeast microbes: Implications for larval fitness and development

254th National Meeting (2017)

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