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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Wapato, Washington » Temperate Tree Fruit and Vegetable Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #338923
Research Project: New Technologies and Strategies to Manage the Changing Pest Complex on Temperate Fruit Trees

Location: Temperate Tree Fruit and Vegetable Research

Title: Modeling the climatic suitability for Fopius arisanus (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) and its host fly Bactrocera dorsalis (Diptera: Tephritidae)

Author
item LANE, JANET - Washington State University
item KUMAR, SUNIL - Colorado State University
item Yee, Wee

Submitted to: Journal of Economic Entomology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/1/2017
Publication Date: 1/1/2018
Citation: Lane, J., Kumar, S., Yee, W.L. 2018. Modeling the climatic suitability for Fopius arisanus (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) and its host fly Bactrocera dorsalis (Diptera: Tephritidae). Journal of Economic Entomology. 154(1):65-78. https://doi.org/10.31184/M00138908.1541.3909.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.31184/M00138908.1541.3909

Interpretive Summary: The oriental fruit fly is a major pest of fruits in tropical and subtropical countries whose range continues to spread. One method of managing the fly is through release of biological control agents, but these agents would need to survive in habitats where the flies are found. Personnel at Washington State University in Puyallup, Colorado State University in Fort Collins, and the USDA-ARS Yakima Agricultural Research Laboratory in Wapato, WA used the maximum entropy model (MaxEnt) to determine overlapping regions of climatic suitability for oriental fruit fly and an enemy wasp (Fopius arisanus) to pinpoint suitable wasp release locations. Results showed that suitable release locations for the wasp against oriental fruit fly include south-central Florida, the West Indies, parts of Central and South America, regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, and coastal Queensland. Results are important in that they suggest releases of wasps for managing oriental fruit fly may be successful in these regions.

Technical Abstract: Releases of the parasitoid Fopius arisanus (Sonan) (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) have significantly decreased fruit fly populations, especially for its preferred host Bactrocera dorsalis (Hendel) (Diptera: Tephritidae: Dacinae). Releases of F. arisanus are most effective where the species can become established for long-term control. Here, we used the maximum entropy model (MaxEnt) to create correlative niche models to find overlapping regions of climatic suitability for B. dorsalis and F. arisanus to pinpoint suitable release locations. Models for both species performed very well. Temperature seasonality contributed the most to the fly model, followed by precipitation of the wettest quarter, which also had the highest gain for the parasitoid model. The calculated niche overlap between the two species was high. B. dorsalis occurrences included additional Köppen-Geiger Climate Classes when compared to the parasitoid. Based on climate ranges for the occurrences of B. dorsalis, this species should be able to survive in the climate classes tropical-rainforest, Af and tropical-monsoon, Am year-round in Africa. According to the B. dorsalis model, parts of the Americas, the West Indies, most of Sub-Saharan Africa, Madagascar, northern China, and northern Australia are at risk for invasion. The F. arisanus model had less climatic suitability than for B. dorsalis. Suitable release locations for F. arisanus against B. dorsalis include south-central Florida, the West Indies, parts of Central and South America, regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, and coastal Queensland. Release locations previously proposed for F. arisanus in California, Peru, Argentina, and Chile have limited climatic suitability.