Abstract
Recent work suggests that Drosophila and Saccharomyces yeasts may establish a mutualistic association, and that this is driven by chemical communication. While individual volatiles have been implicated in the attraction of D. melanogaster, the semiochemicals affecting the behavior of the sibling species D. simulans are less well characterized. Here, we scrutinized a broad range of volatiles produced by attractive and repulsive yeasts to experimentally evaluate the chemical nature of communication between these species. When grown in liquid or on agar-solidified grape juice, attraction to S. cerevisiae was driven primarily by 3-methylbutyl acetate (isoamyl acetate) and repulsion by acetic acid, a known attractant to D. melanogaster (also known as vinegar fly). By using T-maze choice tests and synthetic compounds, we showed that these responses are strongly influenced by compound concentration. Moreover, the behavioral response is impacted further by the chemical context of the environment. Thus, chemical communication between yeasts and flies is complex, and is not driven simply by the presence of single volatiles, but modulated by compound interactions. The ecological context of chemical communication needs to be taken into consideration when testing for ecologically realistic responses.
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Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge Professor Edward J. Louis (University of Leicester, UK) and Professor Wittko Francke (University of Hamburg, Germany) for helpful comments on the manuscript. We also thank Robert Winz (Plant & Food Research Ltd, New Zealand) for support with GC/MS data analysis and Anne Barrington for providing access to the insect rearing facility at The New Zealand Institute of Plant & Food Research Ltd., Auckland. This work was funded by University of Auckland Research Grants and the Swiss National Foundation Grant to Matthew R. Goddard and Claudia C Buser.
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Günther, C.S., Goddard, M.R., Newcomb, R.D. et al. The Context of Chemical Communication Driving a Mutualism. J Chem Ecol 41, 929–936 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-015-0629-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-015-0629-z