# Fruit flies, Hmmm...



## porkchop (Aug 29, 2005)

An interesting read I came across.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/02/0 ... 01-ae-0002


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## kyle1745 (Feb 15, 2004)

Interesting... 

Can't wait to see the laws banning them from hobbiests to reduce infestations... ugg.. ;-)


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## stchupa (Apr 25, 2006)

Fruit flies are the true horror story of our time. We (those who conduct research w/on) have given many sequentially altering (meaning you change one thing [ex; eye pigmentation] you change everything [ex; sexual preference.......] steps..... ahead, of not only themselves but everythinmg else.

I wish they were never brought to the attention of the "hobby". I could willingly do w/out them and that goes triple for the ones having been (being) genetically modified.

If they get out and breed into the native populations they will pass on these traits but also acquire/give new and further reaching capabilities. Extending the range of what they are able to breed w/. Then likewise for those they breed w/, round and round it goes Change the preference for fruit or extend to a general diet and you might shouldn't be surprized if you get into trouble. Now lets just pretend/assume that this HASN'T happened yet.

I was discussing this a couple days ago w/ an aunt I have that lives in Boise. She was talking about all these, what she called "dirt flies"in her house living off the soil w/ her potted plants. I knew exactly what she was refering to. I know she's not imcompetent and can distinguish a fungus gnat from a fly. 

I'm hearing from people all over the country that are just now noticing these fly hybrids. One person here in CO swore they were feeding off the partical board in her apartment. She never figured out where they were coming from, she bleached the sink, no plants and it is dead winter.

Research w/out guidance collectively will lead back from before we started.


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## dneafse (Nov 1, 2006)

*not quite armageddon*



stchupa said:


> Fruit flies are the true horror story of our time.
> 
> If they get out and breed into the native populations they will pass on these traits but also acquire/give new and further reaching capabilities.


Some of this concern seems a bit overblown. It's very hard to extrapolate evolutionary implications from the study described above, because it only studies survivorship in one generation of flies and not reproductive success.

For the most part, there's a tradeoff in Drosophila between stress tolerance and lifetime fertility (e.g. Nghiem et al. 2000, PMID 11121683). So, those flies that were 'hardened' by a heat shock treatment probably had very few offspring, negating the effects of their increased survivorship.

The risk of genetically modified (more likely 'randomly mutagenized' for Drosophila) organisms getting into the wild and passing on their traits to native flies is miniscule for two reasons:

1. The modified trait itself probably greatly reduces fitness.
2. The flies bearing the modified trait were probably hopelessly unfit to begin with (relative to wild flies), due to many generations of deliberate inbreeding.

As far as insect pests go, true fruitflies (aka 'medflies') are much more of an economic liability. 

Dan


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

I have my doubts that fruit flies would become illegal because they are used so much for animal food, research, etc.

Partially, its because the flightless kind have been modified so they don't pose too much of a real problem.

Almost all feeder insects are pests already. And, doesn't the government REQUIRE a permit to begin with to ship live insects commercially because they are aware that they are pests?


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## bluedart (Sep 5, 2005)

Ummm... the fruit flies we keep eat dead and decaying vegetation. 

Medflies eat live fruit crops... the only danger of excessive melanogaster in the wild would be we would have a greater cycling of nutrients into the enviornment... oh no! Run for your lifes! Fruit flies are going to increase global warming!!


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

bluedart said:


> Ummm... the fruit flies we keep eat dead and decaying vegetation.
> 
> Medflies eat live fruit crops... the only danger of excessive melanogaster in the wild would be we would have a greater cycling of nutrients into the enviornment... oh no! Run for your lifes! Fruit flies are going to increase global warming!!


This was my thought exactly. I don't believe that Drosophila melanogaster is a serious agricultural pest. I don't see too many people selling rotten fruit as an end product - at least not as a product that a few maggots would affect the value of.

There is little doubt that climate change will bring a complex of winners and losers. Polar bears will lose while possums and armadillos will win. That part of the deal has been going on for a very, very, long time. I don't think this study means we are going to have this great onslaught of crop pests to deal with. But what it means is that there will likely be a change in pests as some species prosper from climate change and others decline.


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