“Scent of a fruit fly”: Cuticular chemoprofilesafter mating in differently fedDrosophilamelanogaster(Diptera: Drosophilidae) strains

Abstract

n the world of complex smells in natural environment,feeding and mating represent two important olfactory‐guided behaviors inDrosophila melanogaster(Diptera:Drosophilidae). Diet affects the chemoprofile compositionof the individuals, which, indirectly, may significantly affecttheir mating success. In this study, chemoprofiles of re-cently mated flies belonging to fourD. melanogasterstrains,which were fed for many generations on different sub-strates (standard cornmeal—S strain; banana—B strain;carrot—C strain; tomato—T strain) were identified andquantified. In total, 67 chemical compounds were identi-fied: 48 compounds were extracted from males maintainedon banana and carrot, and 47 compounds from malesmaintained on cornmeal and tomato substrates, while totalof 60 compounds were identified in females from allstrains. The strains and the sexes significantly differed inqualitative nature of their chemoprofiles after mating. Sig-nificant differences in the relative amount of three majormale pheromones (cis‐vaccenyl acetate—cVA, (Z)‐7‐pentacosene, and (Z)‐7‐tricosene) and in female pheromone(Z,Z)‐7,11‐nonacosadiene among strains were also re-corded. Furthermore, multivariate analysis of variance(MANOVA) pointed to significant differences between irgin and mated individuals of all strains and within bothsexes. Differences in some of the well known sex pher-omones were also identified when comparing their relativeamount before and after mating. The presence of typicalmale pheromones in females, and vice versa may indicatetheir bidirectional transfer during copulation. Our resultsconfirm significant effect of mating status on cuticular hy-drocarbon (CHC) phenotypes in differently fedD. melano-gasterflies.