Abstract
Drosophila suzukii is a globally distributed insect that infests many economically important fruit varieties by ovipositing into ripening fruits. The mechanisms underlying host selection, in particular the fly's preference for fresh, intact, and competitor-free fruits, are only partially understood. We hypothesize that D. suzukii females use cues of different fruit properties to rank potential host fruits in a hierarchical manner. We created four naturally occurring fruit (blueberries) categories: (1) intact; (2) artificially wounded; (3) wounded + containing eggs of different Drosophila species; and (4) intact + exposed to D. melanogaster. Individual D. suzukii females were offered several fruits in different two-way combinations of the fruit categories. Females showed a robust oviposition preference for intact vs. wounded + infested fruits, which was even stronger compared to the intact-wounded combination. Females preferred ovipositing into intact vs. intact + exposed blueberries; however, they preferred intact + exposed over wounded blueberries. This implies a hierarchical host preference in D. suzukii, which is determined by heterospecific cues (possibly fecal matter components) and an unknown "wounding factor" of fruits.