Abstract
Despite an age-old tradition of olive growing and its geographical location, Iran was apparently free of the olive fly, Bactrocera oleae (Rossi, 1790) (Diptera: Tephritidae), the major worldwide olive tree pest, until the last decade. However, this situation has changed radically since B. oleae was first reported in 2004, and the olive fly is now Iran's most important pest of olive trees, and a very serious threat to olive production in the Northern and more humid parts of the country. Genetic analyses of mitochondrial markers of B. oleae collected in the traditional olive growing area in Northwestern Iran were used to determine the origin of this pest. The results indicate it was most likely imported on olive trees from the Central Mediterranean area.
Highlights
The lands that presently integrate modern Iran have a millennia-long history of close ties with the Mediterranean
As four of the five sequences reported from Portugal, at the Western end of the Mediterranean basin and two of the five available French sequences (Nardi et al, 2005) belong to this “Western European” group, we further explored the hypothesis of a contribution from the Western Mediterranean to the invasion of Iran
We used molecular genetics to determine the source of the olive fly infestation that has struck Iran in the past decade
Summary
Hallmark Mediterranean agricultural crops like grapes and olives have a long history in the region, potentially as far back as the ancient civilizations of the Fertile Crescent (Djamali et al, 2009; Al-Ameri et al, 2011). Consistent with this view, a recent study found high levels of genetic diversity (and a clear divergence from other Mediterranean varieties) among Iranian olive trees (Hosseini-Mazinani et al, 2014), indicating a large population in the past and a distinct introduction into Iran. For Iranian growers, the situation has changed radically since B. oleae was first reported in 2004 (Jafari & Rezaei, 2004), with its status changing from a quarantine pest to the most important pest of olive trees (Noori, 2011)
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