Response of Oriental Fruit Fly (Diptera: Tephritidae) and Associated Parasitoids (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) to Different-Color Spheres

Abstract

Oriental fruit fly, Dacus dorsalis Hendel. captures were higher on yellow and white than on orange, red, light green, dark green, blue, and black spheres hung in guava ( Psidium guajava L.) trees. Captures were greater on 4-cm than on 2-cm yellow spheres. During a series of four l-wk study periods, mean numbers of D. dorsalis captured on yellow and white spheres were 4.4 and 6.3 flies per sphere, respectively. Four species of D. dorsalis parasitoids were also captured on 4-cm yellow and white spheres: Biosteres arisanus (Sonan), Psyttalia incise (Silvestri), Biosteres vandenboschi (Fullaway), and Diachasmimorpha longicaudata (Ashmead). These species constituted 84.1, 5.3, 5.3, and 5.3%, respectively, of the total braconid parasitoids captured on yellow spheres and 83.3, 10.5,3.1, and 3.1%, respectively, of the total parasitoids captured on white spheres. Mean numbers of B. arisanus , the most abundant opiine parasitoid, were 1.6 wasps per yellow sphere and 0.8 wasp per white sphere. This research indicates yellow or white spheres would be useful devices for monitoring D. dorsalis and parasitoid populations simultaneously.