Diversity and Abundance of Hymenopterous Parasitoids Associated with Anastrepha fraterculus (Diptera: Tephritidae) in Native and Exotic Host Plants in Misiones, Northeastern Argentina

Some Major host species used by the tephritid fruit flies Anastrepha fraterculus (Wiede-mann) and Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann), including Acca sellowiana (O. Berg) Burret, Campomanesia xanthocarpa O. Berg, Psidium guajava L., Prunus persica (L.) Batsch, Eriobotrya japonica (Thunb.) Lindl., Citrus reticulata Blanco var. Murcott, C. aurantium L., C. paradisi Macfadyen var. Dalan Dan, and C. paradisi var. Sudashi, were sampled for fruit fly larvae between Feb and Dec 2000 in the northernmost section of the Paranaense forest, in the Province of Misiones, NE Argentina. Both A. fraterculus and C. capitata were obtained from these host plant species, with A. fraterculus accounting for 93% of all tephritid puparia identified. Ten species of larval-pupal parasitoids were recovered from A. fraterculus; Doryctobracon areolatus (Szépligeti), D. brasiliensis (Szépligeti), Utetes anastrephae (Viereck), Opius bellus (Gahan), Diachasmimorpha longicaudata (Ashmead) (Opiinae, raconidae), Odontosema anastrephae Borgmeier, Lopheucoila anastrephae (Rohwer), Aganaspis pelleranoi (Brèthes) (Eucoilinae, Figitidae), Asobara anastrephae (Muessebeck) (Alyssinae, Braconidae), and Aceratoneuromyia indica (Silvestri) (Tetrastichinae, Eulophidae). All these parasitoids, with the exception of D. longicaudata and A. indica, are native to the Neotropical region. No parasitoids were recovered from C. capitata puparia. Asobara anastrephae and O. anastrephae are newly recorded in Argentina, whereas D. brasiliensis, U. anastrephae, and L. anastrephae are newly reported in Misiones. The eucoiline A. pelleranoi wasthe most abundant parasitoid species. Acca sellowiana and P. guajava harbored the highest parasitoid abundance and diversity.Fil: Schliserman, Pablo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro de Investigaciones y Transferencia de Catamarca. Universidad Nacional de Catamarca. Centro de Investigaciones y Transferencia de Catamarca; ArgentinaFil: Ovruski Alderete, Sergio Marcelo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tucumán. Planta Piloto de Procesos Industriales Microbiológicos; ArgentinaFil: Decoll, Olga. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro Regional Misiones; ArgentinaFil: Wharton, Robert. Texas A&M University; Estados Unido

Global assessment of seasonal potential distribution of Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata (Diptera: Tephritidae)

The Mediterranean fruit fly (Medfly) is one of the world's most economically damaging pests. It displays highly seasonal population dynamics, and the environmental conditions suitable for its abundance are not constant throughout the year in most places. An extensive literature search was performed to obtain the most comprehensive data on the historical and contemporary spatio-temporal occurrence of the pest globally. The database constructed contained 2328 unique geo-located entries on Medfly detection sites from 43 countries and nearly 500 unique localities, as well as information on hosts, life stages and capture method. Of these, 125 localities had information on the month when Medfly was recorded and these data were complemented by additional material found in comprehensive databases available online. Records from 1980 until present were used for medfly environmental niche modeling. Maximum Entropy Algorithm (MaxEnt) and a set of seasonally varying environmental covariates were used to predict the fundamental niche of the Medfly on a global scale. Three seasonal maps were also produced: January-April, May-August and September-December. Models performed significantly better than random achieving high accuracy scores, indicating a good discrimination of suitable versus unsuitable areas for the presence of the species