Abstract
The occurrence of cryptic species among economically important fruit flies strongly affects the development of management tactics for these pests. Tools for studying cryptic species not only facilitate evolutionary and systematic studies, but they also provide support for fruit fly management and quarantine activities. Previous studies have shown that the South American fruit fly, Anastrepha fraterculus, is a complex of cryptic species, but few studies have been performed on the morphology of its immature stages. An analysis of mandible shape and linear morphometric variability was applied to third-instar larvae of five morphotypes of the Anastrepha fraterculus complex: Mexican, Andean, Ecuadorian, Peruvian and Brazilian-1. Outline geometric morphometry was used to study the mouth hook shape and linear morphometry analysis was performed using 24 linear measurements of the body, cephalopharyngeal skeleton, mouth hook and hypopharyngeal sclerite. Different morphotypes were grouped accurately using canonical discriminant analyses of both the geometric and linear morphometry. The shape of the mandible differed among the morphotypes, and the anterior spiracle length, number of tubules of the anterior spiracle, length and height of the mouth hook and length of the cephalopharyngeal skeleton were the most significant variables in the linear morphometric analysis. Third-instar larvae provide useful characters for studies of cryptic species in the Anastrepha fraterculus complex.
Highlights
Some species within the Tephritidae family are among the most important pests for agriculture because of their direct effects on fruit production and the quarantine restrictions imposed to prevent the transfer of foreign species from one region to another (Schutze et al 2012, Norrbom et al 2013)
The aim of this study was to perform a comparative analysis of third instar larvae of representatives of five morphotypes of the A. fraterculus complex (Mexican, Andean, Peruvian, Brazilian-1 and Ecuadorian)
The discriminant function analysis showed that all the samples studied differed in the shape of the mouth hook (Figure 3)
Summary
Some species within the Tephritidae family are among the most important pests for agriculture because of their direct effects on fruit production and the quarantine restrictions imposed to prevent the transfer of foreign species from one region to another (Schutze et al 2012, Norrbom et al 2013). In this family, there are species of agricultural importance that are, in reality, complexes of cryptic species (Kitthawee and Dujardin 2010, Hernández-Ortiz et al 2012, Ruiz-Arce et al 2012, Schutze et al 2012, Krosch et al 2013, Vaníčková et al 2014). Tools for studying cryptic species facilitate evolutionary and systematic studies, but they provide support for fruit fly management and quarantine activities
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