Aggregation and spatio-temporal dynamics of fruit flies (Diptera, Tephritidae) in papaya orchards associated with different area delimitations in Brazil

Mayara Ribeiro De Araujo,Paulo Sérgio Fiuza Ferreira,Wesley Augusto Conde Godoy,David Dos Santos Martins,Keiko Uramoto,Maurício José Fornazier,Roberto Antonio Zucchi

doi:10.4025/actasciagron.v44i1.53466

Abstract

We investigated aggregation patterns in three fruit fly species economically important in Brazil, namely Ceratitis capitata, Anastrepha fraterculus, and A. obliqua. The study was carried out in a buffer zone and two neighbourhoods by comparing two-time series associated with the management strategy of fruit flies (systems approach). The abundance of these three species significantly decreased over the years with a negative binomial regression model describing the relationship between abundance and time in the entire area, buffer zone, and their neighbourhoods. In addition, the negative binomial model was also well fitted to the frequency distribution data of fruit flies in all analyzed scenarios. Anastrepha obliqua showed the highest aggregation degree, considering both the entire area and time series. A. fraterculus exhibited the lowest aggregation level, and C. capitata showed an intermediate degree. The buffer zone exhibited the highest aggregation degree for all species, and neighbourhood 2 exhibited the lowest aggregation degree. The aggregation degree was higher in the time series impacted by the systems approach than the series in the first years of its implementation.

Highlights

The main tephritid species distributed across the Neotropical Region include two taxonomic groups, Anastrepha, which comprises 328 species native to the Americas (Norrbom et al, 2021) and occurs in all regions of Brazil (Zucchi & Moraes, 2021a), and Ceratitis capitata, a species with worldwide distribution (Vera, Rodriguez, Segura, Cladera, & Sutherst, 2002), and widely distributed in Brazil (Zucchi & Moraes, 2021b)
The Akaike information criterion (AIC) value indicated that the negative binomial model was the best regression function to explain the abundance variation in response to the time series for C. capitata, A. fraterculus, and A. obliqua
The aggregation pattern of fruit fly species was significantly influenced by area and time

Summary

Introduction

The main tephritid species distributed across the Neotropical Region include two taxonomic groups, Anastrepha, which comprises 328 species native to the Americas (Norrbom et al, 2021) and occurs in all regions of Brazil (Zucchi & Moraes, 2021a), and Ceratitis capitata, a species with worldwide distribution (Vera, Rodriguez, Segura, Cladera, & Sutherst, 2002), and widely distributed in Brazil (Zucchi & Moraes, 2021b). The genus Anastrepha is distributed from a latitude of 35oN to 35oS, in different environments, from the sea level to an altitude of 3,000 m or more. To understand the distribution of fruit flies, it is essential to associate them with their host plants, emphasizing the fruit-growing regions, making this interpretation a biogeographical criterion (Aluja & Liedo, 1986). A significant diversity of fruits is generally infested by fruit flies, including papaya, a fruit with a high production on a commercial scale (Martins, Uramoto, & Malavasi, 2000)

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