The microbiota of influences the larval development of .

Microorganisms play a central role in the biology of vinegar flies such as and : serving as a food source to both adults and larvae, and influencing a range of traits including nutrition, behavior, and development. The niches utilized by the fly species partially overlap, as do the microbiota that sustain them, and interactions among these players may drive the development of crop diseases. To learn more about how the microbiota of one species may affect the other, we isolated and identified microbes from field-caught , and then characterized their effects on larval development time in the laboratory.