ABSTRACT
Behavior, as stated simply by Mathews and Mathews, is “what animals do” or “the ways in which an organism adjusts to and interacts with its environment.” Animal behavior includes many varied activities, such as orientation, communication, movement and dispersal, feeding, reproduction, and defense. Most studies of the behavior of frugivorous fruit flies, for example, either are direct efforts to understand how and why a pest species causes agriculture losses or are efforts to develop approaches and methods to reduce their pest status. Successful implementation of the sterile insect technique for a fruit fly species is dependent on both adequate knowledge of mating behavior and strategies of the fly and the development of behavioral quality control assays to verify the competitiveness of sterile factory-reared flies. Food-based attractants are used for many species of fruit flies, and are important in bait sprays for population suppression and eradication.
