Attractants for House Flies

1
Attractants for House Flies
Christopher J. Geden USDA, ARS, CMAVE
2
Howard (1911) described a prototype baited trap
developed by C F. Hodge
Methods baited with fish heads, meat scraps,
watermelon rinds, and green corncobs, over which
the melted waste from the ice cream freezer was
poured Results on one occasion he caught
2,500 flies in fifty-five minutes
3

• In 1945, Harvey Scudder was assigned by the US
  Public Health Service to assess of the efficacy
  of DDT.
• No standard methods had been developed for
  measuring fly populations at the time.
• His solution count flies resting on a known
  surface area, making 3-5 counts in areas
  appearing to have the highest population.
  (Scudder, H. I. 1947 A new technique for sampling
  the density of housefly populations)

4
In constructing a neutral resting surface,
consideration has been given to the fact that
houseflies are commonly observed to select edges
as resting places Scudder 1947.
5

• The Scudder grid (or grill) became the standard
  method for monitoring house fly populations for
  many years, and is still the method of choice for
  some organizations.
• World Health Organization
• U.S. Armed Forces Pest Management Board
• California Integrated Waste Management Board

• Advantages
• Simple
• Inexpensive
• Fast
• Allows sampling of many sites
• If used consistently, can be used to measure
  population changes over time

6
Action thresholds proposed by Scudder
(1998) _______________________________ Location
No. flies/grill ______________________________
_ Restaurant kitchen 2 Residential back
yard 2-3 City block 5 Milking
parlor 15 General farm 20 ______________________
_________
Scudder, H. I. 1998. Use of the fly grill for
assessment of house fly populations An example
of sampling techniques that create rough fuzzy
sets. J. Vector Ecol. 21 167-172.
7

• Axtell (1970) introduced the spot card and
  recommended its use as a fly monitoring tool.
• Advantages
• Easy
• Inexpensive
• Allows consistent sampling of the same
  locations over time
• Measures activity over a week rather than
  giving snapshot of instantaneous fly activity
• Good tool for monitoring fly populations indoors

Disadvantages does not distinguish among fly
species temperature dependent
8
Research on fly attractants led to improvements
over food-baited Big Stinky types of
traps. Mulla (1970s) identified triemethylamine
and indole/skatole as potent feeding
attractants. Carlson (1970s) discovered the
pheromone (Z)-9-tricosene Scatter baits
including some or all of these components plus
fast-acting toxicants were a major improvement
over earlier insecticidal baits.
9
The challenge attractant must compete with
natural odors
10
Olson sticky cylinder trap with white sleeve
11
Farnam Fly Terminator
Victor Fly Magnet
12
Sheltered QuikStrike with collecting pan
13
(No Transcript)
14
Comparison of Olson sticky trap, Farnam jug trap,
Victor jug trap, and sheltered QuikStrike bait
strip stations. __________________________________
________________ Day Olson Farnam
Victor QuikStrike _______________
___________________________________
Mean no. house flies/trap 1 661
b 5,462 a 2,920 a 6,015 a 2 679 c 4,356 b
2,934 bc 8,814 a 3 678 c 3,080 b 2,520
bc 7,366 a 4 515 b 904 b 1,611 b 5,659
a ________________________________________________
__ Means within rows followed by the same letter
are not significantly at P0.05 (Tukeys range
test)
15
Comparison of Olson sticky trap, Farnam jug trap,
Victor jug trap, and sheltered QuikStrike bait
strip stations. __________________________________
________________ Day Olson
Farnam Victor
QuikStrike _______________________________________
___________
Females 1 21.9 c 72.1 a 59.1
ab 47.5 b 2 19.8 c 73.8 a 78.0 a
35.2 b 3 19.8 c 62.2 ab 68.2 a
46.2 b 4 15.9 d 66.5 b 76.8 a
41.0 c ___________________________________________
_______ Means within rows followed by the same
letter are not significantly at P0.05 (Tukeys
range test)
16

• Jug traps and QuikStrike vs sticky traps.
• RESULTS
• Sheltered QuikStrike bait stations collected
  more flies than the other methods.
• Jug traps collected higher proportions of
  female flies flies (66-78) than QuikStrike
  stations (35-48) or sticky traps (16-22).
• Jug trap counts on day 4 were much lower than
  on day 1.
• All of the methods except the QuikStrike
  stations were limited by trap saturation effects.

17
Effect of fly conditioning on attractiveness of
Farnam attractant. _______________________________
_________________ Day No. flies collected
Females Fresh
Fly-conditioned Fresh Fly-conditioned _______
_________________________________________
1 7,953 a 8,149 a 90.9a 33.0 b 2 6,762
a 3,337 ab 75.9 a 60.2 b 3 4,749 a 2,429 ab
78.5 a 57.0 b 4 994 a 706 a 64.7 a 66.8
a ________________________________________________
Means within rows under subheading followed by
the same letter are not significantly at P0.05
(Tukeys range test)
18
Do jug trap collections increase when attractant
is fly-conditioned? RESULTS No.
Fly-conditioned attractant collected about the
same number of total flies as fresh attractant,
but proportionally more females were collected
with fresh attractant.
19
Comparison of traps baited with Farnam
attractant, Victor attractant, or a
combination. _____________________________________
___________ Day Farnam
Victor Farnam Victor ______________
__________________________________
Mean (SE) no. flies collected
1 469 b 1,279 ab 2,295 a 2 2,631 b 2,114
b 6,847 a 3 2,457 b 2,030 b 6,812 a 4 1,037
b 1,059 b 3,662 a _____________________________
___________________ Means within rows followed by
the same letter are not significantly at P0.05
(Tukeys range test)
20
Are the Farnam and Victor attractants
synergistic? RESULTS Yes. Attractant
combinations collected significantly more flies
than either attractant alone and more than
expected based on the sum of the collections in
the two single-attractant treatments.
21
Comparison of molasses (25 diluted blackstrap),
standard Farnam Terminator attractant, molasses
plus Farnam attractant. __________________________
______________________ Day Molasses
Farnam Molasses Farnam __________________
______________________________ Mean no.
house flies/trap 1 6,251 a 9,835 a 8,588
a 2 4,407 a 6,946 a 7,021 a 3 16,417 a
19,378 a 16,053 a 4 8,895 a 13,778 a
10,347 a
________________________________________________ M
eans within rows followed by the same letter are
not significantly at P0.05 (Tukeys range test)
22
Molasses as a fly attractant. RESULTS Molasses
traps collected as many flies as traps with
Farnam attractant or molasses-attractant
mixtures.
23
Farnam attractant The two main components are
metabolic products of protein degradation that
provide flies with token stimuli for the presence
of protein. The attractant has a very
objectionable odor and can not be used near
people or food. Molasses is a complex material
that may contain sugar breakdown products to
provide flies with token stimuli for the presence
of sugars.
Quinn, B. et al. 2007. Analysis of extracted
and volatile components in blackstrap molasses
feed as candidate house fly attractants. J.
Chromatography, Series A. (in press).
24
(No Transcript)
25
From this information, we developed several
candidate blends of components. A 7-component
blend looks particularly promising
26
(No Transcript)
27
Fly response to blend in assay chambers
28
View collections after 5-min assay period
29
(No Transcript)
30
(No Transcript)
31
(No Transcript)
32
(No Transcript)
33
(No Transcript)
34
How well will the blend compete with other
natural food odors?
35
Can the lure be incorporated into an
attract-and-kill system?