Free Fruit Fly Identification Workshop Set March 11-13 at CDFA's Plant Pest Diagnostics Center

There may be a few openings available in the free, three-day fruit fly identification-training workshop, taught by internationally recognized Tephritidae experts  from March 11-13 in the Plant Pest Diagnostics Center, California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), located at 3294 Meadowview Road, Sacramento.

The openings are due to cancellations by USDA employees who either lost their positions or had their funding cut.

CDFA senior insect biosystematist Martin Hauser will provide the lab space and microscopes, as well as his expertise. 

The hands-on training workshop is funded by a grant awarded to Luc LeBlanc of Idaho State University. An earlier workshop took place Feb. 24-26 in Gainesville, Fla.

Covered at next week's workshop will be "All economic pest fruit flies," Hauser said. "The main focus are the subfamily Dacinae (Asian and African genera: Bactrocera, Ceratitis, Zeugodacus), the South American Anastrepha and the genus Rhagoletis (mainly Europe and North America)."  The flies will include the infamous apple maggot, Rhagoletis pomonella. 

"Everybody will learn how to pin adults out of alcohol and preserve them pinned--and keep them-- how to ID larvae at least to genus level, how to use keys and literature to identify these important flies, discussing problems with keys and problems with species concepts, etc.," Hauser said.

Hauser, emphasizing the importance of the training sessions, said: "There are just not many people worldwide who can identify these important pests. They cause millions and millions of dollars in damage every year. And like in human diseases, it is crucial to have the correct diagnosis, otherwise, it is impossible to implement the correct counter measures and fix the problem."

CDFA's Target Pest Profiles, posted on its website, include the Guava fruit fly, Malaysian fruit fly, Mediterranean fruit fly, melon fruit fly, Mexican fruit fly, Oriental fruit fly, peach fruit fly, Queensland fruit fly, Tau fly, and the white-striped fruit fly.

The workshops are the result of a grant awarded to Luc LeBlanc of Idaho State University, and include two hands-on training sessions, the first in Gainesville, Fla., on Feb. 24-26, and the second in Sacramento. 

The team includes:

Luc LeBlanc, curator and manager of William F. Barr Entomological Museum, Idaho State University. He received his doctorate in 2014 from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, completing his dissertation on the nontarget effects of fruit fly lures. He has extensive experience in insect taxonomy (especially Tephritidae and Ichneumonidae) and managing insect collections. He implemented plant protection-related projects in Africa (1989-1994) and the South Pacific Islands (1994-2002). 

Jung Wook "Woogie" Kim of the USDA-APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service). His title is national taxonomist, Diptera, National Identification Services (NIS), USDA-APHIS-PPQ-PHP (Plant Protection and Quarantine, and Plant Health Programs).  He received his doctorate in entomology from UC Riverside in 2003. His dissertation: “Classification and Evolution of the Aphelininae (Hymenoptera: Aphelinidae).

Erick Rodriguez, research scientist and curator of Diptera, Division of Plant Industry, Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, and "the world expert in pest fruit fly larvae," Hauser said. Rodriguez holds a doctorate from the University of Florida, where he completed his dissertation on "Integrative Taxonomy to Enhance Accuracy of Identification of Fruit Fly Larvae in the Genus Anastrepha (Diptera:Tephritidae).

Martin Hauser, CDFA senior insect biosystematist. He holds a doctorate in entomology (2005) from the University of Urbana-Champaign. His dissertation: "Systematics and Evolution of the Basal Lineages of Therevidae (Insecta: Diptera)." 

Severyn Korneyev, an environmental scientist at CDFA and a research associate at the Bohart Museum of Entomology. He received his doctorate in 2016 from I.I. Schmalhausen Institute of Zoology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. His dissertation: "A Revision of the Genus Tephritis (Diptera, Tephritidae) of the Western Palaearctics"). In 2017, he received a Fulbright grant to Michigan State University to study the molecular phylogeny of Tephritis and Rhagoletis fruit flies. In 2020, as a postdoctoral researcher, he joined the UC Davis/CDFA program; his work involved collecting, identifying and DNA barcoding Tephritidae collected in the Old World. 

"Severyn found a mystery Rhagoletis, which was only known from the holotype specimen described in the 1960 from the Sierra," Hauser said. "It's not a pest but a native California species, which nobody ever found, and he figured out why and found new specimens. We have the article just in press, it is an interesting story...."

Korneyev found the Rhagoletis at Ebbetts Pass, a high mountain pass through the Sierra Nevada range in Alpine County, Calif. His wife, artist Kristina Kernytska, who accompanies him on his insect-collecting expeditions, painted Ebbetts Pass. The work is now on display at the Pence Gallery, Davis, through the month of March.

The workshop registration site: 
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSczpJ_Kmxi8DFzOMal1CsNpMZu6h3XF2aY_XlnaDY6F9UXFEQ/viewform?usp=header

For further information, LeBlanc may be reached at leblancl@uidaho.edu and Hauser at mhauser@cdfa.ca.gov.