author(s)
S Vignesh, M Chandrasekaran, S Jeeva and S Sithanantham

abstract
Mango “King of fruits” is known for its delicious taste and pleasant aroma; besides this it’s nutritive property make the people to consume the fruit. The mango is the second major crop cultivated in India and it has a significant place in international market. The yield and quality aspects of the mango are highly inflicted by various insects, among them fruit fly deserves a unique position. The varied agro climatic conditions prevailed in India and polyphagous nature of fruit fly makes them to spread all over the country. The studies on the species diversity with it’s distribution pattern in a particular area and the influence of weather parameters on the population dynamics of fruit flies are essential to take preventive measures and to carry out effective management practices. Therefore, the present investigation was undertaken to find out the species diversity and seasonal abundance of fruit fly. The trap catches of fruit flies were taxonomically identified and categorized at species level. The major diversity of species registered in the experimental location is viz., Bactrocera caryeae (Kapoor), B. dorsalis (Hendel) and B. correcta (Bezzi) with a minor population of B. nigrofemoralis (White and Tsuruta) and Dacus ramanii (Drew and Hancock).The trapping population on seasonal dynamics showed that, the peak incidence (56.50 no. /trap) in the month of August and the least trapping population of fruit fly activity (3.50 no. /trap) in the month of December. The trapped population of fruit flies was also correlated with the location specific meteorological weather parameters during the experimental period. The correlation analysis results revealed that, the fruit fly incidence is positively correlated with maximum, minimum temperature and negatively correlated with morning, evening relative humidity (RH) and rainfall.