Royal Museum of Central Africa - True Fruit Flies (Diptera, Tephritidae) of the Afrotropical Region (ENBI wp13)

Occurrence
Latest version published by Belgian Biodiversity Platform on Oct 16, 2014 Belgian Biodiversity Platform
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Publication date:
16 October 2014

Download the latest version of this resource data as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) or the resource metadata as EML or RTF:

Data as a DwC-A file download 17,520 records in English (642 KB) - Update frequency: unknown
Metadata as an EML file download in English (6 KB)
Metadata as an RTF file download in English (7 KB)

Description

Fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) are one of the most economically important groups of insects in the Afrotropical Region. They cause millions of Euros of damage to fruits and vegetables, and are a major constraint to commercial and subsistence farming in the region. The family Tephritidae includes more than 5000 species worldwide, approximately 1400 species of which develop in fleshy fruits (Norrbom et al 1999). Nearly 250 of these species are capable of achieving pest status by feeding on plants of economic importance (White and Elson-Harris 1992). The Mediterranean fruit fly, or Medfly, Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann), is currently the most important of these pests from an invasive species perspective. Of African origin, it has spread to several other continents where it causes millions of Euros in damage. It also threatens other horticultural areas (such as California and Florida in the USA and regions in eastern Australia) resulting in very expensive detecting and monitoring programmes in these regions. The destructive association of several species with commercially grown fruit and vegetable crops makes them the subject of intensive agricultural research. But fruit flies are also biologically diverse and form a significant part of the biota of any region. Besides the several pest species, the large majority of the true fruit flies are limited to a small number of indigenous host fruits, mainly from trees and shrubs. Most of them are associated with forested areas, and can be used as indicator species for the biodiversity of a given area. In addition, several fruit fly larvae develop in other parts of host plants such as the stems or flowerheads. Fruit flies database is part of the ENBI WP13 feasibility study (Collaborative project between the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, the Royal Museum for Central Africa and the National Botanical Garden. The data portal for the ENBI WP13 study can be found at http://projects.bebif.be/enbi

Data Records

The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 17,520 records.

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: b276cb50-d3ea-11dc-ab69-b8a03c50a862.  Belgian Biodiversity Platform publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by Belgian Biodiversity Platform.

Keywords

Occurrence; Specimen

Contacts

Marc de Meyer
  • Originator
  • Point Of Contact
Entomologist
Royal Museum for Central Africa
Leuvensesteenweg 13
3080 Tervuren
BE
André Heughebaert
  • Metadata Provider
Ian White
  • Author
Entomologist
Natural History Museum, London, UK
GB

Geographic Coverage

Africa

Bounding Coordinates South West [-36.76, -19.49], North East [38.16, 54.65]

Taxonomic Coverage

Diptera, Tephritidae

Family Tephritidae

Additional Metadata

Alternative Identifiers b276cb50-d3ea-11dc-ab69-b8a03c50a862
http://ipt.biodiversity.be/resource.do?r=occ_mrac_fruitly