Flies, microbial symbionts and their food: ecological interactions in our kitchens and gardens

Simon Fellous
Centre de Biologie pour la Gestion des Populations - INRA, Montpellier, France, simon.fellous@inra.fr

(Seminar in English)

Drosophilid fruits-flies are frequent in our kitchens, laboratories and farms, where some species, such as Drosophila suzukii, are responsible for large crop losses. Despite their ubiquity, and even though Drosophila melanogaster may be one of the most widely studied model organism, the ecology of these insects remains poorly understood.

I will present recent and ongoing work on Drosophila nutrition and symbiosis. First, we used the geometric framework to investigate D. suzukii larval macronutrient needs. Second, I will contrast these results to field and lab data showing how relationships with symbiotic microbes - bacteria and yeast essentially - determine realized niche and interactions between fly species in the wild. Finally, I will focus on fly-bacteria-yeast interactions that we are now trying to elucidate using experimental methods.

Recent publications:

Rombaut, Guilhot, Xuéreb, Benoit, Chapuis, Gibert & Fellous. 2017. Invasive Drosophila suzukii facilitates Drosophila melanogaster infestation and sour rot outbreaks in vineyards. Royal Society Open Science. 4:170117.

Ciabrelli, Comoglio, Fellous, Bonev, Ninova, Szabo, Xuéreb, Klopp, Aravin, Paro, Bantignies & Cavalli, 2017. Stable Polycomb-dependent Transgenerational Inheritance of Chromatin States in Drosophila. Nature Genetics.

Orsucci, Navajas & Fellous, 2017. Genotype-specific interactions between parasitic arthropods. Heredity 118:260-265.