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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Systematic Entomology Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #342656
Research Project: Systematics of Flies of Importance in Agroecosystems and the Environment

Location: Systematic Entomology Laboratory

Title: Identifying seven Anastrepha (Diptera; Tephritidae) species using DNA barcodes

Author
item BARR, NORMAN - Texas Department Of Agriculture
item RUIZ-ARCE, RAUL - Texas Department Of Agriculture
item FARRIS, R. - Texas Department Of Agriculture
item SILVA, J. - University Of Santa Cruz - Brazil
item LIMA, K. - University Of Santa Cruz - Brazil
item DUTRA, V. - Instituto Nacional De Pesquisas Da Amazonia (INPA)
item RONCHI-TELES, B. - California Department Of Agriculture
item KERR, P. - University Of Brazil
item Norrbom, Allen
item NOLAZCO, ALVARADO - University Of Perugia
item Thomas, Donald

Submitted to: Journal of Economic Entomology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/28/2017
Publication Date: 11/30/2017
Citation: Barr, N., Ruiz-Arce, R., Farris, R., Silva, J.G., Lima, K., Dutra, V., Ronchi-Teles, B., Kerr, P.H., Norrbom, A.L., Nolazco, A.N., Thomas, D.B. 2017. Identifying seven Anastrepha (Diptera; Tephritidae) species using DNA barcodes. Journal of Economic Entomology. 111:405-421.

Interpretive Summary: Fruit flies include some of the most important pests of fruits and vegetables worldwide. The majority of the pest species are exotic and are threats to American agriculture. To prevent their introduction into the U.S., more rapid and reliable tools to identify all of their life stages are needed, particularly for the larvae which are nearly indistinguishable morphologically. This paper reports new information about a region of DNA that can be used to distinguish all life stages of some of the most important fruif fly pest species from tropical America. This information will be used by APHIS-PPQ and other regulatory agencies to identify samples from detection programs so that if exotic pest species are introduced they can be promptly detected and eradicated.

Technical Abstract: Molecular identification of fruit flies in the genus Anastrepha is important to support plant pest management and exclusion. Morphological methods of identification of this economically important genus are often not sufficient to identify species when detected as immature life stages. DNA barcoding a segment of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I gene has been proposed as a method to identify pests in the genus. The identification process for these fruit flies, however, has not been explained in prior DNA barcode studies. DNA barcode methods assume that available DNA sequence records are biologically meaningful. These records, however, can be limited to the most common species or lack population-level measurements of diversity for pests. In such cases the available data used as a reference are insufficient for completing an accurate identification. Using 539 DNA sequence records from 74 species of Anastrepha we demonstrate that our barcoding data can distinguish four plant pests: Anastrepha grandis (Macquart), Anastrepha ludens (Loew), Anastrepha serpentina (Wiedemann), and Anastrepha striata Schiner. This is based on genetic distances of barcode records for the pests and expert evaluation of species and population representation in the data set. DNA barcoding of the cytochrome oxidase I gene alone cannot reliably diagnose the pests Anastrepha fraterculus (Wiedemann), Anastrepha obliqua (Macquart), and Anastrepha suspensa (Loew). However, the DNA barcode data can provide useful information in identification of these three species.