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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Gainesville, Florida » Center for Medical, Agricultural and Veterinary Entomology » Chemistry Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #82496
Title: CERATITIS CAPITATA (DIPTERA: TEPHRITIDAE) CAPTURE IN A DRY TRAP BAITED WITH A FOOD-BASED SYNTHETIC ATTRACTANT IN AN ARGAN FOREST IN MOROCCO

Author
item BAAKRI, A. - UNIV CADI AYYAD, MOROCCO
item HADIS, H. - UNIV CADI AYYAD, MOROCCO
item Epsky, Nancy
item Heath, Robert

Submitted to: The Canadian Entomologist
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/15/1998
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: The Mediterranean fruit fly (medfly) is of considerable economic importance for fruit and vegetable production and export. Because of the worldwide threat of these fruit flies, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, International Atomic Energy Agency, funded a Coordinated Research Program to develop female-targeted medfly trapping systems for practical use with sterile insect technique for medfly control and eradication programs. Previously, scientists at the Center for Medical, Agricultural, and Veterinary Research, ARS, USDA in Gainesville, Florida, developed a medfly female-targeted cylindrical plastic trap and two component food-based synthetic chemical attractant, which captures female and male medflies. As part of the Coordinated Research Program and in collaboration with scientists in the Unit of Biological Control of Insects, University of Cadi Ayyad, Marrakech, Morocco, field tests were conducted to compare this trapping system with standard male-targeted trap for wild populations of medflies in Morocco. Results from these studies demonstrated that the female-targeted trapping system captured approximately one-tenth the number of medflies as the male-targeted trapping system, however 60% of the flies were females. Approximately equal numbers of mated and unmated females were captured. Thus, traps baited with food-based synthetic attractant provide a promising female-targeted trapping system for use in conjunction with a sterile medfly release program.

Technical Abstract: Field evaluations were conducted in an argan forest in Morocco to test the performance of a cylindrical dry trap and food-based synthetic attractant (FA) for monitoring the Mediterranean fruit fly (medfly), Ceratitis capitata. This female-targeted trapping system was compared with Jackson traps baited with trimedlure (TML), a male-targeted trapping system. TML-baited traps attracted significantly more males than FA-baited traps (91.4 plus or minus 13.01 and 5.0 plus or minus 0.75, respectively), and the FA-baited traps captured significantly more females than TML-baited traps (9.3 plus or minus 1.93 and 0.1 plus or minus 0.04, respectively). For the first month of the field trial, the ratio of mature females to immature females captured in the FA-baited traps was approximately equal, but more immature females were captured in the second month. FA-baited traps were less specific and captured significantly more non-target flies than the TML-baited traps. The most common non-target flies found were Sarcophaga sp., Musca domestica and Lucilia sp. There was no significant difference between dry traps and Jackson traps with regard to other non-target species captured most of which were spiders and ants. FA-baited traps appear promising for monitoring female medflies, especially for use in conjunction with a sterile medfly release program.