Population dynamics of fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) in mango orchards in the southeastern mango enclave of Ghana

Population dynamics of fruit fly species was studied in the southeastern mango enclave of Ghana. A year-long trapping of fruit flies was undertaken in three  mango orchards. Five traps each, baited with methyl eugenol (ME), cuelure (CL), terpinyl acetate (TA), torula yeast (TY) or trimedlure (TML), were placed in the three orchards. A total of 172,617 fruit flies were captured and collected from the traps. The fly densities were 143.10, 10.19, 4.03, 0.26 and 0.03 per trap per day for ME-, TY-, CL-, TA-, and TML-baited traps respectively. Ten fruit fly species namely Bactrocera dorsalis (Hendel), Ceratitis cosyra (Walker), C. capitata (Wiedemann), C. penicillata (Bigot), Dacus bivittatus (Bigot), D. punctatifrons Karsch, D. langi Curran, D. longistylus Wiedemann, D. ciliatus Loew and Zeugodacus cucurbitae (Coquillett) were captured in the orchards. Dacus langi and D. longistylus were for the first time captured and identified in Ghana. The population of B. dorsalis and Z. cucurbitae fluctuated from April to July with that of B. dorsalis peaking in April, May and June. The periods of the peak population of B. dorsalis coincided with the major mango-fruiting season in the southeastern mango enclave. Knowledge of the seasonal variation in the population of the fruit flies could be harnessed for effective management of the major fruit fly pests in the study area. Particularly, interventions aimed at managing B. dorsalis, a major insect pest in the enclave, could be executed from April to July when this insect is most abundant.