Investigation of the correlations among biological parameters of mass reared peach fruit fly Bactrocera zonata (Diptera : Tephritidae)‎

الملخص EN

The peach fruit fly Bactrocera zonata (Saunders) (Diptera: Tephritidae) is one of the most important species of family Tephritidae.

It is a polyphagous species attacking more than 50 species of fruit and vegetables and It causes serious economic losses, either by direct damage to fruits or indirectly by warranting quarantine and phytosanitary measures.

To perform required studies on biology, attractants, various biological control agents, sterile insect technique (SIT), and postharvest treatment also, to obtain an accurate result that guarantee success of the applied control methods, it is required a regular supply of good quality insects.

This study is aimed to minimize quality control test used to evaluate the quality of laboratory mass produced peach fruit fly B.

zonata.

through finding the correlations among these biological parameters and choose some of these tests as a representative for the rest traditional tests, thus minimize time, costs and labors.

Results revealed that six parameter out of the eight studied parameters ( survival ability, number, size weight, emergence percentage and flight ability [of pupae per each pupation depth]) have the same trend, while only two parameters follow random trend ( percent pupal deformity and sex ratio).

results revealed that pupae collected 2 cm under sand surface have the best quality since have the largest size, highest weight, survive longer, have highest emergence percentage, highest percent of fliers and highest percent of pupae ( with means of 0.0346 ml, 11.98 mg, 67.8 hrs.

98.67 %, 97.33 % and 39.71 % respectively) , followed by pupae from 3 cm depth then first cm and finally the forth cm depth.

Also, correlation tests results revealed that there was a strong direct correlation among the five parameters ( with correlation coefficient r ranging from 0.997 to 0.877).

Pupal weight correlates well with other quality parameters and can be a predictor for tests performed late, its weight gives a robust measure of fly quality.

So, use it to compare overall quality of pupae from different facilities is highly recommended.

thus, minimized labor, time and costs consumed by other tests.