Molecular study of the Mediterranean fly insect Ceratitis capitata and the effect of the direction factor on its density on citrus trees

Abstract

An ecological and molecular study was conducted for the Mediterranean fruit fly Ceratitis capitata in one of the citrus orchards of Ishaqi district during the season 2020-2021. PCR technique was used to determine the gene (COXI) in mitochondria after extracting DNA from the insect. The nucleotides sequences were determined for the product of the polymerase chain reaction gene (COXl) of the insect C. capitata. The sequences obtained from the Korean company Bioneer were analyzed., then alignment and matching was performed with the strains registered in the World Genetic Bank, the Iraqi isolate showed 100% identical with the American strain Ceratitis capitata isolate 030220-11 TNE11 under the accession number JN705021.1 and with a percentage of 99.17 identical with the American strain Ceratitis caetrata isolate 030221-04 TNE12 under the accession number JN705054.1 and with a percentage of 99.17 identical with the Belgian strain Ceratitis caetrata voucher RMCA:1245 under the accession number GQ154186.1 and 99.00% identical to American strain Ceratitis caetrata isolate 071102-3 TNE13 under accession number JN705049.1 and 99.00 identical to American strain Ceratitis caetrata isolate 030221-03 TNE12 under accession number JN705053.1. The results of the genetic tree showed that the percentage of kinship of the insect with other recorded strains, the Iraqi isolate Ceratitis capitata rand1 appeared 100% identical with the American isolate Ceratitis capitata isolate 030220-11 TNE11 under the accession number JN705021.1, and the value of the genetic distance between them reached 0.002, then the Iraqi isolate was recorded Ceratitis capitata isolate rand1 in the World GenBank under accession number MW889894.1. The results of distributing pheromone traps (Jackson) on Citrus aurantium trees, oranges and tangerine showed that the total number of the highest number of hunted males was in the middle of the orchard for Citrus aurantium trees, which reached to 904 males, while for the orange trees, the total density of the highest number of hunted males was in the western side, which reached to 710 hunted males while the total number of the highest population density in the north side was for the tangerine trees (162 hunted males), then the insect ended up appearing in the first half of March of 2021 for all directions in all the trees of the orchard.