Can Ovipositing Rhagoletis Pomonella Females (Diptera: Tephritidae) Learn to Discriminate Among Different Ripeness Stages of the Same Host Biotype?

Abstract

Previously, we found that after a female apple maggot fly, Rhagoletis pomonella (Walsh), alights on a host apple or hawthorn fruit, its propensity to accept (bore into) or reject that fruit prior to egg deposition may depend on the species as well as the cultivar of fruit with which it had prior egglaying experience. Here, we asked whether R. pomonella females are able to learn characters associated with different ripeness stages of a single biotype of apple or hawthorn fruit. Combined results of laboratory, field cage, and field tests revealed little evidence of a significant effect of previous experience with conspecific fruit of different ripeness stages (manifest as green versus red fruit) on fruit acceptability.