Effect of a sour cherry orchard on the population dynamics of Spotted Wing Drosophila in an adjacent elderberry plantation

Abstract

The Spotted Wing Drosophila (Drosophila suzukii Matsumura, 1931 - SWD) became a crucial pest of soft-skinned fruits in less than a decade in different continents, including Europe. The larvae of the polyphagous pest can develop within the fruits of several food plants, including wild and cultivated elderberry. Due to their high mobility, the imagoes can shift between the orchards following the different ripening periods of fruits. Our study aimed to test this phenomenon in neighbouring sour cherry and elderberry plantations. The swarming phenology of SWD and related drosophilid populations was monitored by trapping the SWD imagoes using bottle traps with apple cider vinegar as a lure. At the same time, fruit infestation rates were determined by rearing the flies from the collected fruits. Our results have shown that SWD imagoes emerged in great numbers from the remnants of the early ripening sour cherry fruits and colonised the neighbouring elderberry plantation from its adjacent side. According to our results, early-ripening fruits are essential sources for the infestation of neighbouring late fruit orchards; thus, eliminating their fruit residues may lower the infestation rate of adjacent plantations.

Keywords

• spotted wing drosophila
• mixed production
• elderberry
• sour cherry
• infestation rate