Prior Mating Experience Modulates the Dispersal of Drosophila in Males More Than in Females

Cues from both an animal’s internal physiological state and its local environment may influence its decision to disperse. However, identifying and quantifying the causative factors underlying the initiation of dispersal is difficult in uncontrolled natural settings. In this study, we automatically monitored the movement of fruit flies and examined the influence of food availability, sex, and reproductive status on their dispersal between laboratory environments. In general, flies with mating experience behave as if they are hungrier than virgin flies, leaving at a greater rate when food is unavailable and staying longer when it is available. Males dispersed at a higher rate and were more active than females when food was unavailable, but tended to stay longer in environments containing food than did females. We found no significant relationship between weight and activity, suggesting the behavioral differences between males and females are caused by an intrinsic factor relating to the sex of a fly and not simply its body size. Finally, we observed a significant difference between the dispersal of the natural isolate used throughout this study and the widely-used laboratory strain, Canton-S, and show that the difference cannot be explained by allelic differences in the foraging gene

Emerging New Crop Pests: Ecological Modelling and Analysis of the South American Potato Psyllid Russelliana solanicola (Hemiptera: Psylloidea) and Its Wild Relatives

© 2017 Syfert et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

A comparative study of interspecies mating of Phratora vulgatissima and P-vitellinae using behavioural tests and molecular markers

The leaf beetle genus Phratora L. (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) has been used to study the ecology of host plant chemicals in herbivore preference, and the evolution of host use in chemical defence. Phratora vulgatissima and P. vitellinae are sympatric species distributed widely across Europe. Their trophic niches are largely separate due to strong differences in their host feeding preference, but they have occasionally been recorded together, feeding on Salix burjatica'Germany' and, only in early spring, on Populus trichocarpa (Torr & A. Gray) 'Trichobel'. Using behavioural tests and recently developed species-specific microsatellite markers, the intra- and interspecific mating of both beetle species were investigated. The microsatellite markers provided evidence that interspecific mating occurred under field conditions. Interspecific mating also took place under laboratory conditions, but less frequently than mating within species. Females of both species laid fewer eggs, and fewer eggs per clutch, when isolated with an interspecific male than with a conspecific male. Female P. vulgatissima were polyandrous, as microsatellite markers showed that their larvae were the progeny of both P. vulgatissima males that had been isolated with a single female. While only 0.55% of eggs laid in interspecific pair combinations hatched, microsatellite markers provided evidence of hybridisation between beetle species; however, these larvae died within a week when reared in a Petri dish containing 'Germany' and P. trichocarpa leaves. It can therefore be inferred that reproductive isolation is complete. The results are discussed in relation to species integrity and the implications for diverse mixtures of short-rotation coppice willow plantations