Tephritid fruit flies are of major economic importance in
agriculture. Some have negative effects, some positive. Various species of fruit flies cause damage to fruit and other plant crops. The genus
Bactrocera is of worldwide notoriety for its destructive impact on agriculture. The
olive fruit fly (
B. oleae), for example, feeds on only one plant: the wild or commercially cultivated
olive,
Olea europaea. It has the capacity to ruin 100% of an olive crop by damaging the fruit.
Bactrocera dorsalis is another highly invasive pest species that damages tropical fruit, vegetable, and nut crops.
Euleia heraclei is a pest of celery and parsnips. The genus
Anastrepha includes several important pests, notably
A. grandis,
A. ludens (Mexican fruit fly),
A. obliqua, and
A. suspensa. Other pests are
Strauzia longipennis, a pest of sunflowers and
Rhagoletis mendax, a pest of blueberries. Another notorious agricultural pest is the
Mediterranean fruit fly or Medfly,
Ceratitis capitata, which is responsible for millions of dollars' worth in expenses by countries for control and eradication efforts, in addition to costs of damage to fruit crops. Similarly, the Queensland fruit fly (
Bactrocera tryoni) is responsible for more than $28.5 million in damage to Australian fruit crops a year. This species lays eggs in a wide variety of unripe fruit hosts, causing them to rot prior to ripening. Some fruit flies are used as agents of
biological control, thereby reducing the populations of pest species. Several species of the genus
Urophora are used as control agents against rangeland-destroying
noxious weeds such as
starthistles and knapweeds, but their effectiveness is questionable.
Urophora sirunaseva produces larvae that pupate within a woody
gall within the flower and disrupt seed production.
Chaetorellia acrolophi is an effective biocontrol agent against knapweeds
Chaetorellia australis and
Chaetorellia succinea, deposit eggs into the starthistle seedheads, where their larvae consume the seeds and flower ovaries. Since economically important tephritid fruit flies exist worldwide, vast networks of researchers, several international symposia, and intensive activities on various subjects extend from ecology to molecular biology (
Tephritid Workers Database). Pest management techniques applied to tephritid include the use of cover sprays with conventional
pesticides, however, due to deleterious impact of these pesticides, new, less impactful and more targeted pest control techniques have been used, such as
toxic food baits,
male annihilation technique using specific male attractant
parapheromones in toxic baits or
mass trapping, or even
sterile insect technique as part of
integrated pest management. ==Systematics==