Meeting Abstract

P1-118    Examination of feeding behavior in the polka-dotted fruit fly (Drosophila guttifera) Kropelin, GA*; Scott Chialvo, CH; Appalachian State University; Appalachian State University kropelinga@appstate.edu

The evolutionary arms race between insects and their plant/fungal hosts has been intensely studied. Hosts that produce highly toxic compounds typically exclude generalist feeders that are predicted to evolve the ability to detoxify closely related chemical compounds. However, some fly species in the immigrans-tripunctata radiation of Drosophila use both deadly toxic mushroom species (e.g., the death cap and destroying angel mushrooms) as well as edible species as developmental hosts. While these species are classified as generalists, we hypothesize that the one species (Drosophila guttifera) is transitioning from a generalist to a specialist feeding/developmental strategy. To address this question, we reared larvae from two D. guttifera genotypes on diets with and without a single toxin or a mix of toxins extracted from the death-cap mushroom. We measured several phenotypes (e.g., survival to adult, thorax length) to assess whether larvae exhibited increased performance on diets with toxins. We also conducted oviposition preference assays in the two lines to determine if females preferred to lay their eggs on toxic mushrooms instead of edible mushrooms or fruits. Our results provide greater context for the associations between D. guttifera and its host fungi.