Population dynamics of the olive fly, Bactrocera oleae, in the Eastern Mediterranean

DAVID NESTEL; MARIANO ORDANO; IZHAR ENGELHARD; POLYCHRONIS REMPOULAKIS; ESTHER LAVY; MOSHE BLUM; SAMI YASIN; ITAMAR LANSKY

Lake Tahoe, Nevada

Encuentro; 97th Annual Meeting of the Pacific Branch of the Entomological Society of America; 2013

Entomological Society of America

We followed the population fluctuations of the olive fruit fly, Bactrocera oleae, in several orchards throughout Palestinian and Israel. The survey included different geo-climatic locations. Olive fly was trapped with yellow sticky-traps, serviced every 2 weeks. Tree canopy temperature data was collected in-site with data loggers; and space-born land-surface temperature was also collected. Endogenous dynamics was investigated using temporal autocorrelation functions, and second order autoregressive models. We also fitted generalized least square modelswith environmental variables. Results suggest that most populations are stable and have cyclic trends, with density-dependent patterns at 1, 2 and 12 monthlags. Temperature and host presence throughout the yearwere shown to be the most important exogenous driving factors of the population.