FEMALE CERATITIS CAPITATA (DIPTERA: TEPHRITIDAE) CAPTURE IN A DRY TRAP BAITED WITH A FOOD-BASED SYNTHETIC ATTRACTANT IN AN ARGAN FOREST IN MOROCCO. PART I: LOW POPULATION FIELD TEST

Abstract

AbstractField tests were conducted in an argan forest in Morocco to evaluate the performance of a cylindrical dry trap and food-based synthetic attractant (FA) for monitoring the Mediterranean fruit fly (medfly), Ceratitis capitata (Weidemann). This female-targeted trapping system was compared with Jackson traps baited with trimedlure (TML), a male-targeted trapping system. TML-baited traps attracted significantly more males than FA-baited traps (91.4 ± 13.01 and 5.0 ± 0.75 males, respectively), and the FA-baited traps captured significantly more females than did TML-baited traps (9.3 ± 1.93 and 0.1 ± 0.04 females, respectively). For the first month of the field trial, the ratio of mature females to immature females captured in the FA-baited traps was approximately equal, but more immature females were captured in the second month. FA-baited traps were less specific and captured significantly more nontarget flies than did TML-baited traps.