Population dynamics, native parasitoids and incidence of Tephritidae (Insecta, Diptera) in cherimoya (Annona cherimola mill.) secondary forests at Southern Ecuador

Abstract

Cherimoya is native to southern Ecuador, where it occurs in secondary forests with a high pest incidence, mainly fruit flies. In this research, five McPhail traps baited with Süsbin® 10% were installed in four cherimoya forest, from December 2017 to April 2018, and fruits were collected during the fruition phase to extract the larvae. A total of 1083 Tephritidae individuals and 3613 pupae were obtained from traps and fruits, respectively. Nine species of Anastrepha, one species of Toxotrypana and two parasitoid species were identified. The most abundant species in traps and the only one obtained from fruits was A. fraterculus.

Keywords:

• Fruit flies
• McPhail traps
• Anastrepha spp
• Doryctobracon crawfordi

Acknowledgements

We want to express our gratitude to the landowners of the cherimoya forests for letting us to collect the material in these areas. We are also thankful to the anonymous reviewer for its valuable comments and corrections to the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

Authors declare no conflicts of interests.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available because their containing information could compromise the privacy of research participants.

The parasitoid species are showed between brackets: Dc = Doryctobracon crawfordi, S = Sycophila sp.

Additional information

Funding

This work was partly supported by the Universidad Nacional de Loja under Grant 04-DI-FARNR.