Fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) are among the world’s most serious agricultural pests, causing significant economic losses in fruit production globally and posing a major quarantine concern for most countries. The family Tephritidae contains more than 4,400-5000 species. Bactrocera is the genus, with approximately 440 described species, and includes the majority of economically important fruit flies, such as B. zonata, B. invadens, and B. dorsalis, among others, which infest a wide range of hosts, particularly fleshy fruits. B. zonata is a serious pest of tropical and subtropical fruits. In India alone, it causes damage to 100 percent of peach, apricot, guava, and fig crops, and in Pakistan, it causes 25-50 percent damage to guava crops. This genus is globally recognized to be a frequent invader and aggressive colonizer of new environments. Due to the expansion in the international trade, tourism, beside the weakness of the phytosanitary measures B.zonata introduced into Egypt in 1998 and Libya in 2007 and becomes one of the major concerns to the plant protection authorities in all Mediterranean regions. The EPPO and FAO/IAEA organized workshops, conferences, and sponsored projects to increase awareness among farmers, operators, and related authorities about how to contain this invasion. IAM-Bari also participates in these initiatives by facilitating basic research on the biology, ecology, and control of fruit flies. The potential distribution of the peach fruit fly has been investigated by many scientists based on the potential climate change impact using CLIMEX; they found that B. zonata is able to establish itself in new regions, and the potential for expanding peach fruit fly in southern Europe is possible.
Peach Fruit Fly, Bactrocera zonata (Saunders) the coming danger to the Mediterranean fruit trees
