Influence of different habitats and mating on olfactory behavior of onion flies seeking ovipositional hosts.

Using traps baited with natural and synthetic onion volatiles, we examined the effects of different habitats and mating on the olfactory behavior of laboratory-reared and wild onion flies. Rankings of olfactory treatments as host-finding stimuli for females were dependent on their mating status and the habitat in which they were foraging. In habitats devoid of hosts, traps baited with individual alkyl sulfides were as effective as 4-day-old chopped onions and more effective than 1-day-old onions in eliciting host-finding behavior in laboratory-reared unmated females (LUF) and laboratory-reared mated females (LMF). However, upwind dispersal and percent recapture were always significantly greater in LUF. In one experiment, Pr2S2 was 19 times more attractive to LMF in a fallow field, as than it was in an onion field. Reduced effectiveness of alkyl sulfides as host-finding stimuli in onion fields probably results in part because they are less findable, but more importantly because of a change in searching behavior after females have mated. Evidence to support the latter contention is that traps baited with alkyl sulfides and onions were equally findable by unmated females in both habitats. The behavior of LMF was identical to that of wild females, whereas the behavior of LUF was identical to wild males. The hypothesis that olfactory host-finding behavior in onion flies is modified by the resource level was upheld. Alkyl sulfides appear to be the primary, and possibly the only, chemical effectors of host-finding at the patch level of resource distribution, whereas the complex blend emitted by aged, chopped, or damaged onions appears to be acting at the final level of host-finding, while egg-laying females are moving between adjacent hosts in search of an optimal oviposition site.