Review of the pest status, economic impact and management of fruit-infesting flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) in Africa

Abstract

Fruit flies are a major threat to the horticulture industry in Africa owing to their damage incidence and economic losses to fruit and vegetable crops, and their quarantine implications. Numerous studies with different research interests have been conducted on fruit flies throughout the African continent. Despite these studies, there is little knowledge among stakeholders about fruit fly pests in terms of the economically important species, their pest status, economic impact and control strategies. These parameters are prerequisites in designing management tools for addressing the fruit fly problem in the continent. This paper reviews the status of the fruit fly menace in Africa by reporting some of the findings of previous researchers while laying emphasis on what needs to be done.

Influence of Bactrocera Dorsalis Larval Gut Bacteria on its Susceptibility to the Entomopathogenic Fungus, Metarhizium Anisopliae

“…Effective management of B. dorsalis typically involves combination of several methods in integrated pest management (IPM) programs [14]. Methods that avoid overreliance on chemical insecticides are encouraged for safety to the environment and non-target species which may include useful natural enemies such as parasitoid species [15].…”

Highly variable COI haplotype diversity between three species of invasive pest fruit fly reflects remarkably incongruent demographic histories

“…The recent demographic and geographic changes of pests in this group make them ideal models for testing distance decay predictions, the results of which would be directly relevant to other invasive pest systems. The billions in USD of economic damage that tephritid fruit flies inflict across the planet (Siebert and Cooper 1995;Badii et al 2015;CNAS 2015) has sparked multiple initiatives to build COI DNA barcode reference libraries in order to detect and identify problematic species (Armstrong and Ball 2005;Virgilio et al 2012;Smit et al 2013;Jiang et al 2014;Aketarawong et al 2015;Barr et al 2017). Three invasive polyphagous pests; peach fruit fly -Bactrocera zonata Saunders, guava fruit fly -Bactrocera correcta Bezzi and melon fly -Zeugodacus cucurbitae Coquillett have overlapping host ranges that include over fifty species of commercially grown fruit, as well as partly overlapping distribution ranges (Allwood et al 1999;Vargas et al 2015;Fig.…”

Seed Predation in Wild Populations of Chamisso Arnica (Arnica chamissonisLess: Asteraceae) and New Host Records forCampiglossa snowi(Hering) (Diptera: Tephritidae)

“…Plant host relationships of fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) have worldwide research interest primarily due to economic impacts of tephritid flies on major fruit and vegetable crops (Badii et al 2015, Walton et al 2016. Nonfrugivorous fruit flies are also routinely studied for biological control opportunities against invasive weeds (Pitcairn et al 2008, Skuhrovec et al 2008, Story et al 2008, Birdsall and Markin 2010.…”