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Chinese Journal of Biological Control ›› 2023, Vol. 39 ›› Issue (6): 1318-1326.DOI: 10.16409/j.cnki.2095-039x.2023.01.046

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Bactrocera dorsalis Females Attracted to Their Eggs for Further Oviposition

Ao Guofu1,2, JIA Pinfan2, XIAO Kang2, YUAN Weiwei2, SHI Shuang2, LIN Jia2, ZHENG Minlin2, JI Qinge2   

  1. 1. Key Laboratory of Characteristic and Efficient Agricultural Plant Protection Informatization in Central Guizhou/College of Agriculture, Anshun University, Anshun 561000, China;
    2. Institute of Biological Control, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University/State Key Laboratory of Ecological Pest Control for Fujian and Taiwan Crops/Key Laboratory of Biopesticide and Chemical Biology, Ministry of Education/The Joint FAO-IAEA Division Cooperation Center for Fruit Fly Control in China, Fuzhou 350002, China
  • Received:2022-09-08 Online:2023-12-08 Published:2023-12-20

Abstract: Bactrocera dorsalis Hendel females have the habit of gathering together to lay eggs. To elucidate the aggregation and oviposition behavior of the fruit fly, this study investigated the role of B. dorsalis eggs in attracting the females to gather and lay eggs, and explored the effects of the attraction on B. dorsalis females of different ages and mating status and the differences between eggs and host fruits in attracting the females to gather and lay eggs. The results showed that B. dorsalis females were significantly more attracted to their eggs (36.0%) than to the control (12.0%) within 2 h; in contrast, males were attracted significantly less to their eggs (0.67%) within 2 h than to the control. The attraction of the females differed between laboratory and wild B. dorsalis populations, being the highest of 47.67% at 0.4 g eggs for the laboratory population and 13.67% at 1.2 g eggs for the wild population. We detected an effect of egg amount on the induction of oviposition, 0.8 g eggs induced the largest oviposition (762.0 eggs) in the laboratory population and 1.0 g eggs induced the largest oviposition (790.8 eggs) in the Anshun population. When tested against females of different ages, the eggs induced the laboratory population to deposit 2945.0 eggs on 15 days and the Anshun population to deposit 2530.5 eggs on 12 days. The eggs laid by mated females in the laboratory populations, genetic strains, Anshun populations, and Fuzhou populations were significantly more than that by unmated females. In choice and no-choice tests, eggs induced B. dorsalis oviposition of 624.33 and 844.00 eggs, respectively, which were significantly higher than those induced by fruits of Psidium guajava, Averrhoa carambola and Citrus sinensis. These results indicate that B. dorsalis eggs can attract the B. dorsalis females to gather and induce oviposition, and the oviposition induction is higher than that of the host fruit.

Key words: Bactrocera dorsalis, oviposition, attraction behaviour

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