TY - JOUR
T1 - Use of forested field edges by a blueberry insect pest, Rhagoletis mendax (Diptera
T2 - Tephritidae)
AU - Drummond, Francis A.
AU - Collins, Judith A.
AU - Rodriguez-Saona, Cesar
AU - Zhang, Aijun
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank all of the undergraduate research assistants that helped with our research over the past two decades. The University of Maine Blueberry Hill Farm manager and technicians Dell Emerson, Jeff Brann, Josh Stubbs, and Chris McManus contributed to the conduct of our experiments and data collection. We also would like to thank two anonymous reviewers whose suggestions greatly improved this manuscript. This research was funded, in part, by the Maine Wild Blueberry Commission and the Maine Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station, project ME0‐50502. This is Maine Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station publication number 3697.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Royal Entomological Society
PY - 2021/5
Y1 - 2021/5
N2 - The blueberry maggot fly, Rhagoletis mendax Curran, is a pest of wild and highbush blueberries. In wild blueberries, most flies colonize fields from forest edges annually. Flies were associated with forest canopies adjacent to colonized fields. Flies were captured up to 6 m high (limited by trap placement height) and may occur at greater tree heights. Fly abundance relative to tree species was highest in red oak. Releases of marked flies from tree canopies showed that release height had no effect on distance into the field that flies dispersed. This is important because the main fly control tactic is the application of a 25- to 30-m-wide swath of insecticide along field perimeters. In the laboratory, flies preferred leaves and leaf extracts of red oak compared to other leaf tree and shrub species, including blueberry. Electroantennographs demonstrated that the female antennae consistently responded to compounds extracted from red oak leaves. Mass spectra and gas chromatograph retention times of five antenna-active compounds matched those of (i) trans-β-ocimene, (ii) linalool, (iii) 4,8-dimethyl-1,3,7-nonatriene, (iv) indole, and (v) trans-nerolidol. We speculate flies recruit to trees before movement into blueberry fields primarily for food, as supported by their arrestment response to leaf extracts.
AB - The blueberry maggot fly, Rhagoletis mendax Curran, is a pest of wild and highbush blueberries. In wild blueberries, most flies colonize fields from forest edges annually. Flies were associated with forest canopies adjacent to colonized fields. Flies were captured up to 6 m high (limited by trap placement height) and may occur at greater tree heights. Fly abundance relative to tree species was highest in red oak. Releases of marked flies from tree canopies showed that release height had no effect on distance into the field that flies dispersed. This is important because the main fly control tactic is the application of a 25- to 30-m-wide swath of insecticide along field perimeters. In the laboratory, flies preferred leaves and leaf extracts of red oak compared to other leaf tree and shrub species, including blueberry. Electroantennographs demonstrated that the female antennae consistently responded to compounds extracted from red oak leaves. Mass spectra and gas chromatograph retention times of five antenna-active compounds matched those of (i) trans-β-ocimene, (ii) linalool, (iii) 4,8-dimethyl-1,3,7-nonatriene, (iv) indole, and (v) trans-nerolidol. We speculate flies recruit to trees before movement into blueberry fields primarily for food, as supported by their arrestment response to leaf extracts.
KW - blueberry maggot fly
KW - mark-recapture
KW - tree leaf chemistry
KW - tree preference
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U2 - 10.1111/afe.12421
DO - 10.1111/afe.12421
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85093923682
SN - 1461-9555
VL - 23
SP - 189
EP - 202
JO - Agricultural and Forest Entomology
JF - Agricultural and Forest Entomology
IS - 2
ER -