Influence of Previous Experience with Host Plant Foliage on Behavior of Mediterranean Fruit Fly Females

Abstract

Consistent with the findings of a previous study, foliage-naive gravid females of the Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann), when released onto the foliage of non-fruiting host plants in a Held cage, spent more time on the foliage of citrus than of tomato plants of comparable size. We found here that 3 days of previous experience with the foliage of citrus or tomato plants did not detectably alter the nature of this response pattern. This suggests that prior experience of medfly females with plant foliage (in contrast to prior experience with plant fruit) is probably of negligible biological significance. We also found that the response pattern of medfly females of a strain cultured in the laboratory for more than 300 generations was qualitatively similar to but quantitatively different from the response pattern of wild medflies.