Evaluation of insecticides against the invasive pest Drosophila suzukii (Diptera: Drosophilidae) under laboratory conditions

Abstract

Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura) is an invasive pest of soft-skin fruits. Due to its recent introduction, there are currently no studies about its chemical control in Argentina. The aim of this research was to evaluate five formulated insecticides with different mode of action against eggs, larvae and adults of D. suzukii under laboratory conditions. The product formulated with spinosad was the most effective insecticide, since it showed high efficacy against all life stages. Furthermore, females exposed to spinosad and lambda-cyhalothrin laid fewer eggs. Further studies need to be conducted in order to corroborate these results under field conditions.

Keywords:

• invasive pest
• spotted wing drosophila
• chemical control
• soft-skin fruits
• mode of action

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Verónica Vergara and Gabriel Lunazzi for their help and for providing us the fruits and some of the products evaluated, and to Julie Soderini for her English language help in the final draft of this manuscript. Finally, we want to thank the reviewers of the manuscript for their valuable suggestions and contributions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Departamento de Tecnología, Universidad Nacional de Luján under Grant Disposición CDD_T 004/16, and Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica under Grant PICT 2525/17.