Moscas-das-frutas (Diptera: Tephritidae) : espécies de importância, análise faunística e flutuação populacional

Abstract

The fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) are considered one of the main pests of economic and quarantine importance for mango crop, which cause great losses, spoiling the fruits for the fresh consumption and for industry. Given this situation, this study aimed to identify the fruit flies species associated to commercial mango orchards, with emphasis on the species of economic importance and quarantine, their faunistic indexes and the fluctuation of the most common species found in the orchards, in the semiarid region of the Rio Grande do Norte State. The study was conducted in a period of five years of monitoring, evaluating ten commercial mango orchards cultivar Tommy Atkins, located in the main producing regions of Rio Grande do Norte. For the study of the faunistic analysis and population fluctuation were selected four mango orchards that had the longest continuous period of monitoring. Nine species of fruit flies were recorded, being Ceratitis capitata the only specie captured in all orchards. C. capitata was also the most frequent and predominant specie in the four studied. The population fluctuation of C. capitata varied according to the location of the orchard and year. There was no correlation between pluviometric precipitation and the fluctuation in any of the orchards studied. The relative humidity was negatively correlated (r = -0.69, P <0.05) in the orchard of Afonso Bezerra, in the first year of study; the average temperature was positively correlated (r = 0.81, P <0.05) with the population fluctuation of C. capitata in Rio do Fogo orchard, in the second year of study.