Empirical evidence of the mediterranean fruit fly movement between orchard types

Abstract

AbstractUnderstanding species movement in the agroecological system is an important theme in ecology. A mark–release–capture experiment was conducted to study the dispersion behaviour of the Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata (Wied.; Diptera: Tephritidae; Medfly) in northern Israel. Four pairs of pear and citrus orchards were selected for the field experiments. Sterile flies dyed with different colours were released in three seasons during 2015 and 2016, based on the phenological stages of the hosts. The total number of captured marked sterile flies per trap (FT) was approx 300 in both April and August. In November, FT values decreased by about 35% to approximately 200. The wild Medfly that were also captured showed an opposite trend, from an FT of 1.8 and 6.4 in April and August, respectively, to an FT of about 330 in November. Marked sterile flies were captured in both the release and the neighbouring orchard sites. We found that the Medfly migrates from pear to citrus orchards during spring and from citrus to pear during summer, when there are no fruit‐bearing trees in the orchards. However, during November, when the wild Medfly population prevails in the area, a clear pattern of migration is hard to identify, perhaps because of a possible interaction with the wild fly's population.