Males of the Mediterranean Fruit Fly, Ceratitis capitata, defend individual leaves as mating territories. While perching, males produce a pheromone to attract females. Males also deposit material on the territory by touching the substrate with the tip of their abdomen. The purpose of this study was to determine whether this material also serves to attract females. In the laboratory, we exposed leaves of 4 plant species to different numbers of males for varying lengths of time and then monitored female landing on treated versus control leaves. For all plants tested, females landed more frequently on leaves exposed to 5 mature males for 48 hours than control leaves. However, leaves exposed to 2 mature males for 24 hours were no more attractive to females than control leaves for orange or coffee leaves but were more attractive for macademia and Ficus leaves. Further tests showed that leaf exposure to 2 immature males for 24 hours had no effect on female attraction involving macademia or Ficus. In tests examining male response to exposed macademia or Ficus leaves, we found no difference in male settlement between control leaves and leaves exposed to 2 mature males for 24 hours for either plant species. We suggest that the importance of male territory in attracting females varies with the aromatic 'strength' of the leaves used as perching sites, being most important on non-aromatic substrates.
Species 1: Diptera Tephritidae Ceratitis capitata
Keywords: mating behavior
Back to Ten-Minute Papers, Section Cd. Behavior and Ecology
Back to Ten-Minute Papers, Section Ca, Cb, Cc, Cd, Ce, and Cf
Back to The 2003 ESA Annual Meeting and Exhibition