Description of the regurgitation and bubbling behaviors in Anastrepha fraterculus (Diptera: Tephritidae)

NUSSENBAUM ANA L.; BACHMANN GUILLERMO E.; SEGURA, DIEGO F.; GARBALENA MICAELA S.; VERA MARÍA T.

Sydney

Simposio; 11th International Symposium on Fruit Flies of Economic Importance; 2022

Background: Several fly species regurgitate droplets from the crop, which can settle in theproboscis while the fly remains motionless (bubbling) or be deposited on the surface of a leaf orfruit (regurgitation). Several hypotheses about this behaviour have been postulated, ranging fromreproductive and nutritional functions to thermoregulation and detoxification. Even thoughregurgitation and bubbling have been described in many Tephritidae fruit fly species, little is knownfor A. fraterculus, and the information is limited to the description of the sporadic occurrence ofthese phenomena. In this sense, the aim of our work was to obtain a first comparative anddescriptive behavioural record, from a broad perspective, of regurgitation and bubbling in A.fraterculus.Methods: Bubbling and regurgitation were studied individually, in both sexes and at three ages,covering different times of the sexual maturation process. Experiments were carried out undercontrolled laboratory conditions, recording the number of individuals that regurgitated and/or wereseen bubbling, as well as the duration and sequence in which each behaviour occurred. The numberof drops deposited as well as whether they were later collected or not were recorded.Results: Our initial assays revealed that flies from all treatments bubbled and regurgitated afterfeeding in similar proportions. Regardless of the sex or age, it took on average less than 10 min toinitiate behaviour. In all cases, the most frequent initial behaviour was regurgitation (87% for bothmales and females), and then both behaviours occurred alternately while flies continued to consumefood. The drops were collected by more than 85% of the flies.Conclusions: This study provides the first characterization of the regurgitation and bubblingbehaviours of A. fraterculus. So far, we did not detect differences associated with sex or age in thefrequency of these behaviours, although males seem to take less time to initiate regurgitating, anddeposit more droplets. The chemical characterization of the components of the extruded droplets, aswell as behavioural tests under other contexts (such as mating or oviposition), will allow us toadvance in the understanding of the roles that these behaviours could play in A. fraterculus ecology