Oviposition preference
Exclusion netting (a mesh bag approximately100 x150 mm) was placed around single infructescences after petal fall in both years on wild and cultivated blackberry bushes. Netting bags were secured at the base of the cluster with a foam strip encircled by a plastic zip tie to ensure a tight seal to prevent insect entry but not damage the plant. Fruit were monitored, and when ripe fruit were observed in both cultivation types, all netted, ripe berries were collected at a single wooded and cultivated site on the same day and brought back to the lab. The following day, fruit were examined under a microscope to verify a lack of insect or mechanical damage. A two-choice bioassay was set up using equal weights of cultivated and wild blackberries placed in 35 x10 mm petri dishes in the bottom of a 473-ml plastic container. Two 5–7-day old females from the laboratory colony (see Hardin et al. 2015) were added to the container and removed after 90 minutes and the number of eggs per berry was counted. A separate two-choice assay compared oviposition preference between a single cultivated and single wild blackberry fruit using the same protocol.