Two species of true fruit flies (taxonomic family Tephritidae) are considered pests of fruit and vegetable production in Argentina: the cosmopolitan Mediterranean fruit fly (Ceratitis capitata Wiedemann) and the new world South American fruit fly (Anastrepha fraterculus Wiedemann). The distribution of these two species in Argentina overlaps north of the capital, Buenos Aires. Regarding the control of these two pests, the varied geographical fruit producing regions in Argentina are in different fly control situations. One part is under a programme using the sterile insect technique (SIT) for the eradication of C. capitata, because A. fraterculus is not present in this area. The application of the SIT to control C. capitata north of the present line with the possibility of A. fraterculus occupying the niche left vacant by C. capitata becomes a cause of much concern. Only initial steps have been taken to investigate the genetics and biology of A. fraterculus. Consequently, only fragmentary information has been recorded in the literature regarding the use of SIT to control this species. For these reasons, the research to develop a SIT protocol to control A. fraterculus is greatly needed. In recent years, research groups have been building a network in Argentina in order to address particular aspects of the development of the SIT for Anastrepha fraterculus. The problems being addressed by these groups include improvement of artificial diets, facilitation of insect mass rearing, radiation doses and conditions for insect sterilisation, basic knowledge supporting the development of males-only strains, reduction of male maturation time to facilitate releases, identification and isolation of chemical communication signals, and a good deal of population genetic studies. This paper is the product of a concerted effort to gather all this knowledge scattered in numerous and often hard-to-access reports and papers and summarize their basic conclusions in a single publication.

Herbivore host specialization includes changes in behavior, driven by locally induced adaptations to specific plants. These adaptations often result in sexual isolation that can be gauged through detection of reduced gene flow between host associated populations. Hypothetically, reduced gene flow can be mediated both by differential response to specific plant kairomones and by the influence of larval diet on some adult traits such as pheromone composition. These hypotheses could serve as a model to explain rapid radiation of phytophagous tephritid fruit flies, a group that includes several complexes of cryptic species. The South American Fruit Fly Anastrepha fraterculus (Wiedemann) is a complex of at least seven cryptic species among which pheromone mediated sexual isolation resulted in rapid differentiation. Cryptic species also exhibit differences in host affiliation. In search of a model explaining rapid radiation in this group, we studied host plant chemical composition and genetic structure of three host associated sympatric populations of A. fraterculus. Chemical composition among host plant fruit varied widely both for nutrient and potentially toxic secondary metabolite content. Adaptation to plant chemistry appears to have produced population differentiation. We found host mediated differentiation to be stronger between populations exploiting sympatric synchronic hosts differing in chemical composition, than between populations that exploit hosts that fruit in succession. Gene flow among such host associated populations was extremely low. We propose as a working hypothesis for future research, that for those differences to persist over time, isolating mechanisms such as male produced sex pheromones and female preferences resulting from adaptation to different larval diets should evolve.

Anastrepha fraterculus (Wiedemann) is currently considered a complex of cryptic species infesting fruits from Mexico to Argentina and represents an interesting biological model for evolutionary studies. Moreover, detecting and quantifying behavioral, morphological, and genetic differentiation among populations is also relevant to the application of environment-friendly control programs. Here, phenotypic differentiation among individuals coexisting in the wild in a Northern region of Argentina was unveiled and associated with host choice. Six morphometric traits were measured in sympatric flies exploiting three different host species. Phenotypic variation was shown to be host-dependent regardless of geographical or temporal overlap. Flies collected from synchronous alternate hosts (peach and walnut) differed from each other despite the lack of geographical isolation. By contrast, flies emerging from guavas that ripen about two months later than peach and walnut showed no significant differentiation in comparison to flies collected from walnuts, but they differ significantly from flies originating from peaches. This result is consistent with the hypothesis that the same population of flies shifts from walnuts to guavas throughout the year, whereas the population of flies that uses peaches as a host is probably exploiting other alternate hosts when peach availability decreases. Further research is needed to study the underlying mechanism. Results are consistent with previous molecular markers (inter-simple sequence repeat-ISSR) research on flies stemming from the same hosts and the same area, suggesting that differentiation among flies emerging from alternative hosts occurs at both genetic and phenotypic levels. The contribution of host preference in long-term genetic differentiation is discussed.