Previous studies on insect DNA barcoding provide contradictory results and suggest not consistent performances across orders. This work aims at providing a general evaluation of insect DNA barcoding and "mini-barcoding" by performing simulations on a large database of 15,948 DNA barcodes. We compared the proportions of correctly identified queries across a) six insect orders (Coleoptera, Diptera, Hemiptera, Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera and Orthoptera), b) four identification criteria (Best Match: BM; Best Close Match: BCM; All Species Barcodes: ASB; tree-based identification: NJT), and c) reference databases with different taxon coverage (100, 500, 1,000, 1,500 and 1,995 insect species).

Horticulture is one of the most important agricultural subsectors in Africa, providing income, creating employment opportunities, and enhancing food and nutritional security. However, tephritid fruit flies are responsible for both direct and indirect losses, with alien invasive species often having the most severe ecological and economic impact. In the past 20 years, systematic analysis of tephritids has provided comparative information on taxonomy, synonymy, and character-state differentiation. New molecular techniques are now available for identifying species, reconstructing phylogenies, and studying population genetic structures. Research on biology, host range and shifts, thermotolerance, and demography has provided useful information for developing predictive and ecological niche models to guide management methods. In recent years, the responses of various species to attractants have been documented. Several suppression methods, including the release of coevolved parasitoid species targeting invasives, have been promoted within the context of integrated pest management, leading to improvement in the quality and quantity of fruits and vegetables produced. However, there is still the need for wide-scale availability of these technologies to smallholder growers across Africa.

Two correlative approaches to the challenge of ecological niche modeling (genetic algorithm, maximum entropy) were used to estimate the potential global distribution of the invasive fruit fly,Bactrocera invadens, based on associations between known occurrence records and a set of environmental predictor variables. The two models yielded similar estimates, largely corresponding to Equatorial climate classes with high levels of precipitation. The maximum entropy approach was somewhat more conservative in its evaluation of suitability, depending on thresholds for presence/absence that are selected, largely excluding areas with distinct dry seasons; the genetic algorithm models, in contrast, indicate that climate class as partly suitable. Predictive tests based on independent distributional data indicate that model predictions are quite robust. Field observations in Benin and Tanzania confirm relationships between seasonal occurrences of this species and humidity and temperature.

The host range of major fruit fly pests in Central Tanzania was evaluated from October 2004 to October 2006. Samples of 48 potential hosts were collected and incubated for fruit fly emergence.Bactrocera invadenswas the dominant species in incidence expressed as the ratio of infested to total number samples collected, as well as infestation rate, expressed as number of flies emerging per unit weight. Eight new host fruits are reported. Infestation by native pests, such asCeratitis capitataandC. cosyra, was minor compared toB. invadens.Ceratitis rosawas the dominant species in temperate fruits, and Cucurbitaceae were mainly infested byBactrocera cucurbitae, a specialized cucurbit feeder. Among commercial fruits, high infestation incidences were observed in mango and guava, but they decreased throughout the fruiting season. Low infestation rates were observed in allCitrusspecies and in avocado, indicating these fruits as poor hosts for the studied fruit fly pests in this region. Widespread availability and abundance of fruit species studied here ensures year-round breeding ofB. invadens. Seasonal infestation differs, with mango being the most important host in October to January, while guava being important from February to August. Tropical almond showed very high incidence and infestation rate forB. invadensand might act as an important reservoir host, bridging the fruiting seasons of mango and guava. Soursop acts as an important host forC. cosyraafter the mango season.Ceratitis capitatais a pest of minor importance of the commercial fruits studied in this region.

This paper reviews all available information regarding the occurrence and biology of the melon fly, Zeugodacus cucurbitae (Coquillett), in the Afrotropical Region, including data on invasion history, distribution patterns, population genetics, host range, and interspecific competition. Although limited intraspecific variability has been observed within the region regarding the above mentioned aspects, there seems to be no indication that Z. cucurbitae represents a species complex. A checklist of all of the species included in Zeugodacus as recently proposed by Virgilio et al. (2015) is provided.

Anchored hybrid enrichment is a form of next-generation sequencing that uses oligonucleotide probes to target conserved regions of the genome flanked by less conserved regions in order to acquire data useful for phylogenetic inference from a broad range of taxa. Once a probe kit is developed, anchored hybrid enrichment is superior to traditional PCR-based Sanger sequencing in terms of both the amount of genomic data that can be recovered and effective cost. Due to their incredibly diverse nature, importance as pollinators, and historical instability with regard to subfamilial and tribal classification, Syrphidae (flower flies or hoverflies) are an ideal candidate for anchored hybrid enrichment-based phylogenetics, especially since recent molecular phylogenies of the syrphids using only a few markers have resulted in highly unresolved topologies. Over 6200 syrphids are currently known and uncovering their phylogeny will help us to understand how these species have diversified, providing insight into an array of ecological processes, from the development of adult mimicry, the origin of adult migration, to pollination patterns and the evolution of larval resource utilization. We present the first use of anchored hybrid enrichment in insect phylogenetics on a dataset containing 30 flower fly species from across all four subfamilies and 11 tribes out of 15. To produce a phylogenetic hypothesis, 559 loci were sampled to produce a final dataset containing 217,702 sites. We recovered a well resolved topology with bootstrap support values that were almost universally >95 %. The subfamily Eristalinae is recovered as paraphyletic, with the strongest support for this hypothesis to date. The ant predators in the Microdontinae are sister to all other syrphids. Syrphinae and Pipizinae are monophyletic and sister to each other. Larval predation on soft-bodied hemipterans evolved only once in this family. Anchored hybrid enrichment was successful in producing a robustly supported phylogenetic hypothesis for the syrphids. Subfamilial reconstruction is concordant with recent phylogenetic hypotheses, but with much higher support values. With the newly designed probe kit this analysis could be rapidly expanded with further sampling, opening the door to more comprehensive analyses targeting problem areas in syrphid phylogenetics and ecology.