Effects of sugar alcohols on longevity of Musca domestica (Diptera: Muscidae)

The house fly, Musca domestica L. (Diptera: Muscidae), remains an important nuisance and disease vector in and around homes, farms, commercial buildings, and nearly anywhere humans and livestock are present.  House flies mechanically transmit a myriad of pathogens including bacteria, viruses, and protozoans.  Dietary preferences, nutrient limitations, and Caloric constraints play important roles in house fly longevity, sucrose availability in the diet being the most important factor promoting longevity (Lysyk 1991, Cooper et al. 2004).  We evaluated the effects of erythritol and other sweeteners on longevity of house flies.  Under standardized rearing conditions, experiments used 20 flies (4-8 d old) per treatment and control (water only).  Mortality was recorded daily for 14 days.  Mean longevities for the control and erythritol were consistently much lower than in all other treatments.  Since erythritol is the least Calorie-dense artificial sweetener at 0.2 Calories per gram, data suggest that the significant decrease in longevity is likely due to starvation, and not insecticidal properties of the sweetener as reported by Baudier et al. (2014).  No significant differences were observed between the control (water only) and erythritol treatments (P = 1.000 Tukey’s HSD).  Environmental access to carbohydrate sources such as aphid honeydew which flies take advantage of (Hung et al. 2015), can increase fly longevity and therefore influence vector pathogen transmission.  This research provides new evidence towards a greater understanding of house fly longevity and sugar-feeding behavior that could be used for novel control strategies such as toxic sugar-based baits and vector-borne disease monitoring.