Spotted wing drosophila, Drosophila suzukii (Diptera: Drosophilidae), trapped with combinations of wines and vinegars

Abstract

Field trapping experiments evaluated wine and vinegar baits for spotted wing drosophila flies, Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura), and assessed variance in bait attractiveness with wine type, vinegar type, and bait age. A mixture of apple cider vinegar and a Merlot wine attracted more flies than a mixture of acetic acid and ethanol. The vinegar/wine mixture attracted numbers of flies that were similar to numbers of flies trapped with acetic acid with wine or ethanol with vinegar. These results indicate that chemicals in vinegar in addition to acetic acid, and chemicals in wine in addition to ethanol, are attractants for the spotted wing drosophila. Numbers of flies captured with wine/vinegar mixtures varied somewhat with wine type, with a Merlot wine yielding best captures among the wines tested. Numbers of flies captured with wine/vinegar mixes also varied somewhat with vinegar type, with a rice vinegar yielding best captures among vinegars tested. Numbers of flies captured varied little with bait age, from 0 to 7 days old. These results will assist efforts to improve baits used to trap spotted wing drosophila, and to provide guidance for the isolation and identification of chemical attractants from wines and vinegars.