Adaptation to and Small-Scale Rearing of Invasive Fruit Fly Bactrocera invadens (Diptera: Tephritidae) on Artificial Diet

Abstract

Larval rearing of Bactrocera invadens Drew, Tsuruta & White (Diptera: Tephritidae) on artiÞcial diet is described. The adaptation process for this insect, when moved from whole mango, Mangifera indica L., fruit rearing to artiÞcial diet based on wheat bran, took between three and Þve generations to reach the plateau of quality control parameters observed for rearing the insect on whole mango fruit. Small-scale rearing on wheat, Triticum aestivum L.-, or carrot, Daucus corata-based diet revealed signiÞcantly higher pupal recovery for ßies reared on the wheat-based artiÞcial diet (68.8%) compared with the carrot-based diet (58.2%). Weekly production of puparia was 3,966.8 on wheatand 3,012.1 on carrot-based diet. Other quality control parameters, including pupal weight, adult emergence, ßight ability, fecundity, and fertility did not differ signiÞcantly between the two artiÞcial rearing media tested.