Bactrocera dorsalis

The oriental fruit fly (Bactrocera dorsalis) is an important agricultural pest in Asia, Africa, and the Pacific, impacting over 150 fruits and vegetables in tropic and sub tropic regions. In addition, B. dorsalis is established across the Hawaiian Islands and is a species of concern in the continental United States, with numerous interceptions and detections made annually, often triggering eradication efforts and quarantines. In addition to being an important pest species, B. dorsalis, as a member of the family Tephritidae, can serve as an important species for comparison to the well characterized drosophilid group, having diverged from Drosophila approximately 70 million years ago. B. dorsalis consists of a large species complex containing many economically important species. Recently, several important pest species (B. dorsalis, B. carambolae, B. papayae , B. invadens, and B. philippinensis) were synonomized to a single B. dorsalis. The genome presented here represents a B. dorsalis s.l. colony derived from the Puna region of the Big Island of Hawaii.

Community contact: Scott Geib, USDA-ARS

Image author and copyright: Pest and Diseases Image Library, Bugwood.org; Image source (CC-BY-NC Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 3.0)