(Scienceblog) - Come harvest season, wine makers have grown accustomed to looking for the telltale signs of a common but devastating threat: black mold and spores combined with a distinct acidic smell. These symptoms are associated with grape sour rot disease, an incurable condition involving the decomposition of damaged berries that ultimately degrades wine quality, resulting in millions of dollars in losses annually.

New research led by Tufts University shows that the invasive European paper wasp, Polistes dominulus, plays a role in facilitating sour rot disease in the absence of other insects.

Published today in PeerJ, the study sought to expand the knowledge of the ecology of this disease, which is characterized by acetic acid bacteria, Ascomycota yeasts, and filamentous fungi that attack ripe, thin-skinned berries mostly in late summer.