Essay Example on Fruit flies are the notorious pest of many Fruits

Fruit flies are the notorious pest of many fruits and vegetables globally They are almost cosmopolitan in distribution occur in Europe America Canada Mediterranean region Middle East Asia and Africa Kamali et al 2013 They belong to the order Diptera and mostly Tephritidae family pose a serious threat to agriculture causing almost 100 crop loss when no control initiatives are taken Abdulla et al 2017 Moreover it has been reported that15 and 20 loss in the production of horticultural crops each year in Argentina is attributed respectively to fruit flies Ceratitis capitata Anastrepha fraterculus leading to decrease in surplus income by 90 million US dollar year Sanchez et al 2016 Similarly in Africa loss due to fruit fly infestation in mango was estimated to be 40 Dimbi et al 2009 Apple pear mango guava citrus olive cherry almond grapes fig loquat cucurbits tomatoes etc are some of the examples of crops that are attacked by fruit flies 

Also it causes the pollution of air water and soil Condition is even worst in developing countries where pesticide poisoning results in the death of 20 000 individuals year with 1 5 million victims including both agricultural workers and consumers Abdulla et al 2017 Moreover Pesticides are expensive too Abdulla et al 2017 Above mentioned scenario originated from the excessive use of pesticides demands the need of more sustainable and safe measures which is the biological method to control fruit flies Biological control method besides having no adverse impact on the environment is easy to adopt financially viable pragmatic uses locally available methods and can be paired with other mechanical control measures too Sanchez et al 2016 It involves the use of entomopathogens Nematodes fungi Bacteria Parasitoids Predators and Biopesticides Entomopathogenic nematodes as the name suggests is pathogenic to insects They are recognized as one of the important agent for the control of fruit flies Langford et al 2013 Soil dependent stages in the life cycle of fruit flies are protected from the parasitoids and at this stage entomopathogenic nematodes play vital role as they occur freely in soil and move actively in the search of a host 

The objective of this review paper is to study the research works related to the biological control of the fruit flies and to see the potential of entomopathogenic nematodes as compared to other biocontrol methods to keep these pests below the economic threshold It expects to compare different biocontrol methods try to find out successful combination of different biocontrol come up with the most appropriate solution and finally find that area of biocontrol which has potential if further research is done For this review research papers published after 2009 were searched online in the website www scopus com and web of science using key words entomopathogenic nematodes biological control and fruit flies The first section of this paper deals with the biology and ecology of fruit flies Whereas in the second section emphasis will be on finding out successful and unsuccessful biocontrol approaches for the management of fruit flies And the third section concentrates on the role of entomopathogenic nematodes for the control of fruit flies This paper anticipates helping organic farmers facing problems with fruit flies and growers who wish to control them without using pesticides Moreover it can also provide information to the researchers wanting to do research on biological control