Author
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ANDERSON, JAMES - UNIV OF MISSISSIPPI |
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Mankin, Richard |
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Submitted to: Meeting Proceedings
Publication Type: Proceedings Publication Acceptance Date: 9/30/2003 Publication Date: N/A Citation: N/A Interpretive Summary: Medflies are important pests worldwide. There is a constant threat that medflies may enter the U.S. undetected and establish populations that would be difficult to eradicate. Methods are under development by USDA, ARS scientists at the Center for Medical, Agricultural, and Veterinary Entomology in Gainesville, FL, and the Volcani Center, Bet Dagan, Israel to improve the ability of quarantine officials to detect small infestations and selectively trap females that could rapidly expand incipient populations. This report describes initial experiments to develop a female selective trap that could be used to detect incipient infestations and efficiently monitor established populations in areas where sterile males are released for eradication purposes. The traps were attractive over short distances. Efforts are in progress to optimize the trap and improve the percentages of nearby female medflies that are captured. Technical Abstract: Attractants for female medflies are of particular interest in monitoring programs where sterile males are released to eradicate incipient populations. A female-targeted trap also could assist the monitoring of mass-trapping suppression efforts in areas of established populations. In bioassays that tested the ability of male acoustic courtship cues to attract females, broadcast male calling song was found to significantly affect female medfly behavior. However, the tested song did not induce phonotaxis, and it affected female behavior over a relatively short, <0.5-m distance, even at high signal levels. Further increases in attractivity may result from addition of olfactory (pheromonal stimuli) or visual attractants that mimic the environments where leks form most frequently. |
