Trapping and the Detection, Control, and Regulation of Tephritid Fruit Flies

The book focuses on four broad topics related to trapping of agriculturally important tephritid fruit flies, namely i) lures and traps, ii) invasion biology and detection of infestations, iii) attract and kill systems, and iv) trade regulations and risk assessment. This comprehensive structure progresses from the biological interaction between insect and lures/traps to the area-wide use of trapping systems to the utilization and impact of trapping data on international trade. The chapters include accounts of earlier research but are not simply compendia and instead evaluate past and current work as a tool for critical analysis and proposal of productive avenues for future work. At present there is no book available that deals with fruit fly trapping in such a broad context. Our book fills this gap and serves as a global reference for both those interested in fruit flies specifically as well as anyone dealing with the threat of invasive agricultural insects in general.

Tephritid fruit flies are among the world’s most notorious pests of commercially important fruits and vegetables, and with ever-increasing human and product movement and accelerated global warming, these flies will have an even greater impact in the future. Information gathered through trapping is crucial to understanding their ecology, controlling their populations, and developing international trade agreements. This volume is the first devoted exclusively to trapping tephritid fruit flies and adopts a comprehensive and global approach in describing key empirical and theoretical issues.

The book consists of four major sections, which cover lures and traps, ecology and detection, attract-and-kill methods of control, and phytosanitary programs and regulations. Within this broad perspective, the authors focus on a diverse array of basic and applied topics, including the role of pheromones, food-baits, and plant odors as trap lures, dispersion and invasion biology, modeling detection programs, evaluation of bait stations, mass trapping, and male annihilation as control measures, and the role of trapping data in developing trade regulations. Representing 15 countries, the authors bring rich experience to the subject and ably describe current status as well as historical perspective and future direction of the selected topics. Useful manuals exist, but this book offers a much broader, academic, and international perspective to the core principles of tephritid trapping. The book’s audience will include researchers, teachers, animal and plant health administrators, and policy makers. Given the breadth of material covered and the exhaustive citation listing along with the increasing agricultural threat posed by tephritid fruit flies, this book will be an extremely valuable reference on the subject for many years to come.