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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 #65191
Title: SYSTEMS TO MONITOR AND SUPPRESS MEDITERRANEAN FRUIT FLY (DIPTERA:TEPHRITIDAE) POPULATIONS

Author
item Heath, Robert
item Epsky, Nancy
item Dueben, Barbara
item MEYER, WENDY - UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

Submitted to: Florida Entomologist
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/11/1996
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: The Mediterranean fruit fly is a major pest of citrus and other fruit crops worldwide. Because of this threat, much emphasis is placed on detection of this fly in federal and state programs in the United States. Scientists at the Insect Attractants, Behavior, and Basic Biology Research Laboratory in Gainesville, Florida, developed a food-based synthetic chemical attractant and a cylindrical dry trap that can be used to capture female and male medflies. Field trials in Guatemala demonstrated that an open-bottom configuration of the cylindrical dry trap that uses a sticky paper insert is effective in detecting low populations of medflies. These findings may provide a significant improvement in detection of Mediterranean fruit flies in the United States. Early detection will result in significant cost savings in eradication efforts and reduce the amount of pesticide-bait sprays that are used against this pest.

Technical Abstract: A synthetic food-based attractant and a painted cylindrical dry trap that protects the synthetic lures from the environment were developed as a replacement for liquid protein-baited traps. This trapping system was tested for capture of the Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann). The dry trap is constructed of acetate film with a painted band that provides a visual cue and contains internally-placed toxicant panels to kill flies that enter the trap. Field trials conducted in Guatemala suggested that a solid-colored material could be substituted for the painted trap body. We investigated the use of a sticky insert, which was made from commercially produced adhesive paper to replace the toxicant panels. Unlike paintable sticky adhesives, the sticky material on the adhesive paper insert does not adhere to the skin of personnel who service the traps. An open-bottom trap made of green opaque plastic with a sticky insert captured more C. capitata than the closed-bottom painted trap with a toxicant panel. When used in conjunction with sterile insect release technology, the open-bottom dry trap baited with food-based synthetic attractant often caught wild C. capitata in numbers equal to those caught by trimedlure-baited Jackson traps, but the dry trap caught many fewer sterile C. capitata.