Fifty-two species are placed in the Bactrocera dorsalis complex in Asia, eight of which are considered of economic importance. Twelve species are revised and the following forty new species described: Bactrocera atrifemur, B. bimaculata, B. carambolae, B. cibodasae, B. collita, B. floresiae, B. fulvifemur, B. fuscitibia, B. gombokensis, B. indonesiae, B. infulata, B. irvingiae, B. kanchanaburi, B. kandiensis, B. kinabalu, B. lateritaenia, B. latilineola, B. lombokensis, B. makilingensis, B. malaysiensis, B. melastomatos, B. merapiensis, B. minuscula, B. neocognata, B. neopropinqua, B. osbeckiae, B. papayae, B. penecognata, B. philippinensis, B. pyrifoliae, B. quasipropinqua, B. raiensis, B. sembaliensis, B. sulawesiae, B. sumbawaensis, B. thailandica, B. unimacula, B. usitata, B. verbascifoliae and B. vishnu. A key to species within the complex is presented. Information is given on location of type specimens, host-plants, attractant records and geographic distribution. Lectotypes are designated for B. dorsalis (Hendel), B. mangiferae (Cotes) (a synonym of B. zonata (Saunders)) and B. pedestris (Bezzi).
Summary 1.The extent to which plant-herbivore feeding interactions are specialized is key to understand the processes maintaining the diversity of both tropical forest plants and their insect herbivores. However, studies documenting the full complexity of tropical plant-herbivore food webs are lacking. 2. We describe a complex, species-rich plant-herbivore food web for lowland rain forest in Papua New Guinea, resolving 6818 feeding links between 224 plant species and 1490 herbivore species drawn from 11 distinct feeding guilds. By standardizing sampling intensity and the phylogenetic diversity of focal plants, we are able to make the first rigorous and unbiased comparisons of specificity patterns across feeding guilds. 3. Specificity was highly variable among guilds, spanning almost the full range of theoretically possible values from extreme trophic generalization to monophagy. 4. We identify guilds of herbivores that are most likely to influence the composition of tropical forest vegetation through density-dependent herbivory or apparent competition. 5. We calculate that 251 herbivore species (48 of them unique) are associated with each rain forest tree species in our study site so that the 200 tree species coexisting in the lowland rain forest community are involved in 50 000 trophic interactions with 9600 herbivore species of insects. This is the first estimate of total herbivore and interaction number in a rain forest plant-herbivore food web. 6. A comprehensive classification of insect herbivores into 24 guilds is proposed, providing a framework for comparative analyses across ecosystems and geographical regions.
Recent advances in understanding insect communities in tropical forests have contributed little to our knowledge of large-scale patterns of insect diversity, because incomplete taxonomic knowledge of many tropical species hinders the mapping of their distribution records. This impedes an understanding of global biodiversity patterns and explains why tropical insects are under-represented in conservation biology. Our study of approximately 500 species from three herbivorous guilds feeding on foliage (caterpillars, Lepidoptera), wood (ambrosia beetles, Coleoptera) and fruit (fruitflies, Diptera) found a low rate of change in species composition (beta diversity) across 75,000 square kilometres of contiguous lowland rainforest in Papua New Guinea, as most species were widely distributed. For caterpillars feeding on large plant genera, most species fed on multiple host species, so that even locally restricted plant species did not support endemic herbivores. Large plant genera represented a continuously distributed resource easily colonized by moths and butterflies over hundreds of kilometres. Low beta diversity was also documented in groups with differing host specificity (fruitflies and ambrosia beetles), suggesting that dispersal limitation does not have a substantial role in shaping the distribution of insect species in New Guinea lowland rainforests. Similar patterns of low beta diversity can be expected in other tropical lowland rainforests, as they are typically situated in the extensive low basins of major tropical rivers similar to the Sepik-Ramu region of New Guinea studied here.
A total of 44 species are placed in the genus Dacus inSouth-east Asia and divided amongst four subgenera, viz.Callantra Walker, Dacus Fabricius,DidacusCollart and LeptoxydaMacquart. In all, 27 species are revised and the following 17 new speciesdescribed: Dacus (Callantra)ambonensis, D.(C.) atrimarginatus,D. (C.)calirayae, D.(C.)feijeni,D. (C.)insulosus, D.(C.) lagunae,D. (C.)leongi, D.(C.) maculipterus,D. (C.)murphyi, D.(C.) nanggalae,D. (C.)ooii, D.(C.) ramanii,D.(C.)siamensis,D. (C.)tenebrosus, D.(C.) vijaysegarani,D. (C.)wallacei, Dacus(Dacus) santongae. A key tospecies within the genus Dacus is presented based oncharacters that bypass subgeneric groupings, because of the presentuncertainty of subgeneric limits. Information is given on location of typespecimens, host plants, attractant records and geographic distributions.Lectotypes are designated for D. conopsoides de Meijere, D. esakii (Shiraki),D. icariiformis Enderlein andD. persicus Hendel. Thirteen new synonymies withinDacus are established:Callantra ihai Shiraki [ofDacus esakii (Shiraki)];Callantra smieroides Walker,Mellesis destillatoria Bezzi,Mellesis eumenoides Bezzi,Mellesis bioculata Bezzi,Callantra unifasciatus Hardy,Callantra variegata Wang (all ofDacus longicornis Wiedemann);Mellesis apicalis Shiraki [ofDacus nummularius(Bezzi)];Callantra munroi Zaka-ur-Rab,Callantra nepalensis Hardy,Callantra quadristriata Munro [all ofDacus polistiformis (Senior-White)];Callantra ziae Wang [ofDacus satanas (Hering)];Dacus cocciniae Premlata & Awtar Singh (ofDacus ciliatus Loew).Dacus persicus Hendel is removed from synonymy withD. longistylus Wiedemann.Sinodacus fuscans Wang is placed as a new synonym ofBactrocera brachycera(Bezzi).
Bacteria isolated from crops and stomachs of adult fruit flies feeding on mulberry fruit and leaf surfaces were cultured on agar and proved highly attractive to adult fruit flies and provided them with virtually a complete breeding diet. Diets of bacteria, sugar and water gave equal longevity and increased fecundity in Dacus tryoni (Froggatt) compared with the conventional diet of autolysed brewer's yeast, sugar and water. The type and abundance of leaf and fruit surface bacteria appears to be an important factor in the life history of tropical fruit flies.
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