Fruit Fly Surveillance in Togo (West Africa): State of Diversity and Prevalence of Species

The study established a baseline situation of fruit fly species (Diptera: Tephritidae), using biodiversity analysis in mango orchards scattered in different ecological zones from the South to the North of Togo in West Africa. The fruit fly capture device consisted of orchard monitoring traps using a dry bait, made of four types of parapheromones specific to the males of the species of fruit flies. The sorting and identification of fruit fly species were carried out in the laboratory using a binocular microscope, identification keys and reference collections. Forty species of fruit flies were identified in mango orchards in Togo. The most common species were Bactrocera dorsalis (Hendel), Ceratitis cosyra (Walker), Ceratitis fasciventris (Bezzi), Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann), Ceratitis bremii Guerin-Meneville, Dacus bivittatus (Bigot), Dacus humeralis (Bezzi), Dacus punctatifrons Karsch and Zeugodacus cucurbitae (Coquillett). The invasive exotic species B. dorsalis and the endogenous species, C. cosyra were dominant in the mango producing areas of Togo because, they had very high prevalence (B. dorsalis: 2.1 ≤ FTD ≤ 472.2; C. cosyra 0.34 ≤ FTD ≤ 97.28). There was no area free from fruit flies in Togo at the moment of the study. These results constitute an essential reference in the future evaluation of the effectiveness of control activities initiated in Togo against fruit flies.