Diurnal and Seasonal Activity Patterns of Drosophilid Species (Diptera: Drosophilidae) Present in Blackberry Agroecosystems With a Focus on Spotted-Wing Drosophila

Drosophilid species with different life histories have been shown to exhibit similar behavioral patterns related to locating and utilizing resources such as hosts, mates, and food sources. Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura) is an invasive species that differs from other frugivorous drosophilids in that females lay eggs in ripe and ripening fruits instead of overripe or rotten fruits. We hypothesized that there may be diurnal and/or seasonal patterns associated with the movement of drosophilid species into and out of crop fields and their attraction to fermentation-odor-based monitoring traps, and that D. suzukii would conform to similar patterns. To test these hypotheses, we deployed passive, 2-headed Malaise traps between crop fields and wooded edges to simultaneously catch flies moving into and out of crop fields. We also deployed monitoring traps with a fermentation-based bait between crop fields and wooded edges and within crop rows. Traps were deployed weekly in June–August in 2014 and 2015 at two commercial blackberry farm in Cleveland County, NC, and were checked hourly for 24 h, except during darkness. Both D. suzukii and other drosophilid species moved between crop fields and wooded edges and were attracted to monitoring traps primarily during the morning and evening hours. Whereas other drosophilids were captured in traps throughout the season, few D. suzukii were caught in traps until early to mid-July in both years and increased as the season progressed. Understanding D. suzukii movement and activity patterns is essential for the development of effective management strategies.

Early Professional Days

Scruggs played around Cleveland County through his schoolboy and teen years, wherever and whenever there was a spot available. Not yet a professional, he played with his brother at a fish camp, or open-air restaurant, on the broad river near the Flint Hill neighborhood. Times were hard and Earl got a job at Lily Mills in Shelby to help support his mother. He continued to play locally with groups such as the Orange Blossom Hillbillies and the Carolina Wildcats. Playing during breaks at the mill gave him his first sense that others would enjoy his music. Graduating from Boiling Springs High School, he took a job with regional favorites, the Morris Brothers, and then worked with Lost John Miller and the Allied Kentuckians in Knoxville as his last job before joining Bill Monroe on the Grand Ole Opry.

Reaping the Harvest

Earl Scruggs was well positioned for renewed stardom when people’s thirst for American roots music took off in the 1990s. He had recovered from illness and gone off the road with his high-powered Earl Scruggs and Family and Friends band. Honors showered on him from governments and big-time nonprofits. His hometown of Shelby planned to make a shrine to Scruggs out of the old Cleveland County courthouse. Also taking up arms for Scruggs were acoustic stars such as Béla Fleck and Jerry Douglas's Flatt and Scruggs homage group, the Earls of Leicester. Warren Beatty honored Earl at a 2008 bash thrown for Beatty. Louise Scruggs died in 2006 and Earl in 2012. He was widely eulogized and remembered.

“I grew up around a banjo”

Chapter tells the story of Earl Scruggs’s childhood and school years in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, and of the early death of his father, George Elam Scruggs. Members of the family, including his mother, Lula Ruppe Scruggs, played organ, fiddle, banjo, guitar and other instruments. Scruggs had five brothers and sisters. While expected to take a full part in the backbreaking labor on the farm, Scruggs was also very occupied with music. While he was plowing, musical thoughts ran through his mind over and over. Cleveland County, where he grew up, was a thriving center of business, cotton-dominated agriculture, politics, and music.