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Data from: Tracking Individual <i>Bactrocera tryoni </i>(Diptera: Tephritidae): Wind Effects and Natural Movement

Metadata Updated: June 5, 2025

Determining the natural movement parameters of pest insects, such as tephritid fruit flies, is critical to developing models that can be used to increase the effectiveness of control and surveillance strategies. In this study, two experiments were conducted using harmonic radar to track wild-caught male Queensland fruit flies (Qflies), Bactrocera tryoni, a major horticultural pest in Australia. Experiment 1 continuously tracked individual flies which were prodded to induce movement in a high-density papaya field. Experiment 2 was conducted in a field with lower papaya density and tracked flies were allowed to move without disturbance. This latter natural movement experiment showed that Qfly move at a rate of 19 ± 3 m/h. In both experiments, overall and between-tree flight directions were found to be correlated with wind direction while within-tree movement directions were not. Further, the effect of wind direction on fly trajectories varied by step-distance but not strongly with wind speed while step-distance distributions were consistent with Lévy walks. Qfly movements were well fitted by two-state hidden Markov models further supporting the observation that Qflies move differently within (short steps with random direction) and between (longer more directional steps) trees. Data on flight directionality, step-distances, and movement speed determined in this study provide parameters that may help enhance current surveillance, control, and eradication methods, such as optimizing trap placements and pesticide applications, determining release sites for parasitoids, and setting quarantine boundaries after incursions.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: us-pd

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Dates

Metadata Created Date January 1, 2025
Metadata Updated Date June 5, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from USDA JSON

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date January 1, 2025
Metadata Updated Date June 5, 2025
Publisher Agricultural Research Service
Maintainer
Identifier 10.15482/USDA.ADC/26877439.v1
Data Last Modified 2025-05-08
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 005:18
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id c2d20bde-a378-4dc4-a5fd-7d0dc43e8737
Harvest Source Id d3fafa34-0cb9-48f1-ab1d-5b5fdc783806
Harvest Source Title USDA JSON
License https://www.usa.gov/publicdomain/label/1.0/
Program Code 005:040
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash a6f1550bfbbd651fc6f1f88330030b664e6d8612add17cea12c9a429486ed19c
Source Schema Version 1.1
Temporal 2023-06-13/2023-07-14

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