Authors: Band, Henretta¹; Bächli, Gerhard²; Band, Rudolph³

Source: Biological Invasions, Volume 7, Number 3, May 2005 , pp. 509-530(22)

Publisher: Springer

Abstract:

Nearctic Chymomyza amoena, an eastern US forest drosophilid, was initially known only to breed in damaged or parasitized nuts and had been little studied. It has been spreading in Europe since its discovery in the former Czechoslovakia in 1975. By the time it arrived in Switzerland’s Canton Ticino in 1988, research in the United States revealed it had long been in domestic habitats, overwinters in the third instar larval stage in endemic substrates (black walnut husks Juglans nigra, native crabapples Malus coronaria), domestic [imported] apples Malus domestica and ornamental fruits (crabapples) and uses these plus other substrates for breeding from spring and summer through autumn. Female oviposition in firm substrates in Michigan and the mid-South (North Carolina, Virginia) as fallen unripe and ripe frassy apples, acorns, black walnut husks, native and ornamental crabapples is mediated by prior insect attack. Although large numbers of C. amoena coming to banana bait in Canton Ticino suggested that founder effects involving attraction to fermenting substrates might have occurred, experimental studies with European flies in Michigan and continuing research in Zürich and Canton Ticino revealed that behavioral constancy had been maintained. This enabled prediction that C. amoena would spread into apple orchards in northern Switzerland and into Italy. Research in July 2000 established that it is in apple orchards on the German border and in the chestnut forests and in old orchard apples in Italy’s Valtellina region, Lombardy Province. Other European drosophilids have not exploited parasitized fruits and nuts, indicating C. amoena entered a vacant niche. Facilitation provided by pest species attacking fruit and nut substrates parallel those in North America. Chymomyza amoena has maintained behavioral constancy for interspecies dependency and continues to be the principal drosophilid breeding in parasitized fruits and nuts in both North America and Europe.

Keywords: apples; behavioral constancy; chestnuts; Chymomyza amoena; facilitation; female oviposition behavior; indirect effects; interspecies dependency; Italy and Switzerland; parasitized substrates; vacant niches

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10530-004-6352-2

Affiliations: 1: Zoology Department, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA, Email: band@msu.edu 2: Zoological Museum, University of Zürich-Irchel, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057, Zürich, Switzerland, 3: Zoology Department, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA,

Publication date: 2005-05-01

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• In this Subject: Agriculture (General) ,  Anatomy & Physiology ,  Biology ,  Hydraulic & Environmental Engineering
• By this author: Band, Henretta ;  Bächli, Gerhard ;  Band, Rudolph

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