Species composition of fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) in the Citrus Museum at the Agricultural Research Centre (ARC), Kade, Ghana

Abstract

To determine species composition of fruit flies on six cultivated varieties of citrus (Late Valencia orange, Pineapple orange, Ovaleto, Mediterranean sweet lemon, Satsuma tangerine and Ortanique orange), a study was conducted at the Agricultural Research Centre, Kade, Ghana. Improvised Lynfield baited traps (methyl eugenol (ME) and citrus juice (CJ)) and McPhail baited traps (trimedlure (TML)) were used. Ripe infested fruits from the selected varieties were also collected and incubated. Tephritid fruit fly species from trapping were identified as Bactrocera invadens Drew, Tsuruta & White, Bactrocera cucurbitae (Coquillet), Ceratitis ditissima Munro, C . anonae Graham, C . capitata (Wiedemann), C . bremii Guerin-Meneville, Dacus bivittatus (Bigot), D . punctatifrons Karsch and Trirhithrum Bezzi. A total of 35,247 fruit flies were collected from the traps, with densities of 10.38, 1.00 and 0.27 flies/trap/day for ME, CJ and TML traps, respectively. All incubated fruit varieties showed co-habitation of three different species ( C. ditissima, C. anonae and B. invadens ) in each of them. In addition, one Dacus vertebratus was obtained from dropped Late Valencia fruits. Moreover, three individual Fopius caudatus (Szepligeti) parasitoids were recorded from the infested incubated fruits. Ranking of the different fruit fly species from infested incubated host fruits was as follows: C. ditissima (476) > C. anonae (74) > B. invadens (71) and D. vertebratus (1). Competitive ability among the invasive flies in their process to infest the six citrus varieties was observed. These findings could serve as a useful starting point for the development of a reliable catalogue of host diversity, fruit fly species diversity and associated natural enemy records in Ghana.