Massimiliano Virgilio

• PhD
• Researcher at Royal Museum for Central Africa

Hoverflies (Diptera: Syrphidae) provide valuable ecosystem services, such as pollination, to a large variety of wild and cultivated sexually reproducing plant species. In this study, we examined the diversity, number of visits, visitation rate and foraging time of hoverfly species in three main cucurbit crops (cucumbers ( Cucumis sativus L.), water...

Fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) are a significant threat to cucurbit production in Tanzania. To effectively combat these pests, it is crucial to understand the patterns of fruit fly infestations among cucurbit crops at different altitudes. Our study focused on the infestation patterns of fruit flies among commonly grown cucurbit crops—cucumber (...

Insect diversity is closely linked to the evolution of phytophagy, with most phytophagous insects showing a strong degree of specialisation for specific host plants. Recent studies suggest that the insect gut microbiome might be crucial in facilitating the dietary (host plant) range. This requires the formation of stable insect-microbiome associati...

Here, we present novel high quality genome assemblies for five invasive tephritid species of agricultural concern: Ceratitis capitata, C. quilicii, C. rosa, Zeugodacus cucurbitae and Bactrocera zonata (read depths between 65 and 78x). Three assemblies (C. capitata, C. quilicii and Z. cucurbitae) were scaffolded with chromosome conformation data and...

Background The high invasiveness of phytophagous insects is related to their adaptability to various environments, that can be influenced by their associated microbial community. Microbial symbionts are known to play a key role in the biology, ecology, and evolution of phytophagous insects, but their abundance and diversity are suggested to be infl...

The Mediterranean fruit fly (Ceratitis capitata) is a globally invasive species and an economically significant pest of fruit crops. Understanding the evolutionary history and local climatic adaptation of this species is crucial for developing effective pest management strategies. We conducted a comprehensive investigation using whole genome sequen...

Two fruit fly (Diptera: Tephritidae) species of economic importance: Ceratitis rosa Karsch and Ceratitis quilicii De Meyer, Mwatawala & Virgilio are present in South Africa. The two species were considered as one species prior to 2016, but were subsequently separated. In this study, the distribution and abundance of the two species were quantified...

Identification of fruit fly larvae is difficult due to the limited morphological characteristics present. However, this is the stage at which fruit flies are intercepted at ports of entry through horticultural imports. Molecular tools are useful but are time-consuming and expensive compared to morphological identifications. This project aims to use...

Gut microbial communities are critical in determining the evolutive success of fruit fly phytophagous pests (Diptera, Tephritidae), facilitating their adaptation to suboptimal environmental conditions and to plant allelochemical defences. An important source of variation for the microbial diversity of fruit flies is represented by the crop on which...

Fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) possess high diversity and globally wide distribution, including a range of important agricultural pests. However, the origin, phylogeny and divergence history remain poorly understood. We undertook the first comprehensive mitogenomic study covering phylogenetic reconstruction, divergence time estimation and histo...

While contemporary changes in feeding preferences have been documented in phytophagous insects, the mechanisms behind these processes remain to be fully clarified. In this context, the insect gut microbiome plays a central role in adaptation to novel host plants. The cucurbit frugivorous fruit fly Zeugodacus cucurbitae (Diptera, Tephritidae) has oc...

Intentionally preserved biological material in natural history collections represents a vast repository of biodiversity. Advances in laboratory and sequencing technologies have made these specimens increasingly accessible for genomic analyses, offering a window into the genetic past of species and often permitting access to information that can no...

Ceratitis is an economically important genus of fruit flies that originated in Africa, has a wide host range, and causes serious economic losses due to its invasive damage. As a result, it is critical to identify them accurately and quickly in the world. Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), as one of the representatives of isothermal ampl...

This poster highlights recent findings regarding the invasion history of the fruit fly pest B. dorsalis in the Indian Ocean region. It describes a stepwise invasion with two distinct invasion pathways. The paper can be found here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/eva.13507

Here we present a checklist of all records of dacine fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae: Dacinae) from Mozambique, based on verified specimen records in natural history collections and literature records. In total, 57 Dacinae species are recorded from Mozambique, of which only one is considered endemic. This relatively low species diversity compared...

Fruit flies represent a significant threat to cucurbit production. They inflict about 30% to 100% losses on cucurbit crops. The aim of this study was to characterize the community of fruit flies infesting cucurbit crops in Morogoro, Tanzania. We investigate the diversity and abundance of fruit fly species infesting cucumber, watermelon, and squash...

Fruit flies (Diptera, Tephritidae) represent a major threat to cucurbit production in Tanzania. They cause huge economic losses on cucurbit crops. Information on the infestation and yield loss caused by fruit flies on cucurbit crops is vital in designing a sound fruit fly management program. We identified the fruit fly species attacking cucurbit cr...

An increasing number of invasive fruit fly pests are colonizing new grounds. With this study, we aimed to uncover the invasion pathways of the oriental fruit fly, Bactrocera dorsalis into the islands of the Indian Ocean. By using genome‐wide SNP data and a multipronged approach consisting of PCA, ancestry analysis, phylogenetic inference, and kinsh...

Introduction The oriental fruit fly Bactrocera dorsalis is one of the most destructive agricultural pests worldwide, with highly debated species delimitation, origin, and global spread routes. Objectives Our study intended to (i) resolve the taxonomic uncertainties between B. dorsalis and B. carambolae, (ii) reveal the population structure and glo...

Background: Gastropod snails remain strongly understudied, despite their important role in transmitting parasitic diseases. Knowledge of their distribution and population dynamics increases our understanding of the processes driving disease transmission. We report the first study to use high-throughput sequencing (HTS) to elucidate the population g...

While contemporary changes in feeding preferences have been documented in phytophagous insects, the mechanisms behind these processes remain to be fully clarified. In this context, the insect gut microbiome plays a central role in adaptation to novel host plants. The cucurbit frugivorous fruit fly Zeugodacus cucurbitae (Diptera, Tephritidae) has oc...

We examined the phylogeny and intrageneric classification of eristaline hoverfly genera from the Afrotropical Region using mitochondrial genomes. Genome skimming was used to obtain (nearly) full mtDNA and nuclear rDNA (18S, 28S) genomes of 120 museum vouchers from eight genera and 98 species. Phylogenetic reconstructions of mitogenomes and mitogeno...

The Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata (Weidemann), is considered one of the most significant tephritid pest species worldwide and is an exotic species in most of its range. Here, we investigated polymorphism at 14 microsatellite loci for a total of 126 populations of C. capitata from six geographical regions, applying network theory and c...

The Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata (Weidemann), is considered one of the most significant tephritid pest species worldwide and is an exotic species in most of its range. Here, we investigated polymorphism at 14 microsatellite loci for a total of 126 populations of C. capitata from six geographical regions, applying network theory and c...

The Ceratitis FARQ complex (formerly FAR complex) includes four frugivorous tephritids, Ceratitis fasciventris, C. anonae, C. rosa and C. quilicii, the latter two causing important agricultural losses in Africa. Although FARQ species can be identified on the basis of subtle morphological differences, they cannot be resolved as monophyletic when try...

BACKGROUND Attractant‐based trapping is used in the establishment of pest‐free areas and areas of low pest prevalence for fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae). Male lures are commonly used attractants in fruit fly trapping. In this study, the effects of male lure dispensers, traps and combinations of dispensers and traps on monitoring of two fruit fl...

The present study describes the population dynamics of Bactrocera dorsalis (Hendel) in Manica Province (Mozambique), provides estimates of mango yield, economic losses and the economic injury level. From September 2014 to August 2015, methyl eugenol-baited traps were placed in three selected orchards (Trangapasso, Produssola and Pandafarm) and mang...

The family Tephritidae includes some of the most notorious insect pests of agricultural and horticultural crops in tropical and sub-tropical regions. Despite the interest in the study of their gut microbiome, our present knowledge is largely based on the analysis of laboratory strains. In this study, we present a first comparative analysis of the g...

The production of mango in Mozambique is under threat due to fruit fly infestation, and most of the farmers cannot afford the cost of control. Spatio-temporal dynamic of Bactrocera dorsalis was assessed at farm level in Manica Province to provide information for better calibration of pest management strategies and thereby minimize the use of pestic...

This study presents the first complete mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) of Caecobarbus geertsii, the Congo blind barb, a cave-dwelling, CITES-protected, cyprinid fish endemic to the Lower Congo basin (DRC). The length of the circular mitogenome is 16,565 base pairs. The 13 protein coding genes, 2 ribosomal RNA genes and 22 transfer RNA genes are s...

The Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata (Weidemann), is one of the most economically important tephritid species worldwide. It has spread across six geographic regions as a result of successful invasions and continues to cause substantial losses to agricultural communities. Our study examined 1,864 flies originating from 150 localities, usi...

High-throughput sequencing (HTS) techniques are of great value for the investigation of microbial communities, and have been extensively used to study the gut microbiome. While most studies focus on the human gut, many others have investigated insects. However, because of the rapid spread of HTS techniques, a lot of variation exists in the protocol...

The hoverfly genus Eristalinus (Diptera, Syrphidae) contains many widespread pollinators. The majority of the species of Eristalinus occur in the Afrotropics and their molecular systematics still needs to be investigated. This study presents the first complete and annotated mitochondrial genomes for five species of Eristalinus. They were obtained b...

Hypotheses about the worldwide colonization routes of the melon fly, Zeugodacus cucurbitae (Diptera: Tephritidae), are mainly based on sparse historical records. Here we aim at reconstructing the colonization history of the African continent based on an improved description of the population structure of Z. cucurbitae and approximate Bayesian analy...

Background Clupeid fisheries in Lake Tanganyika (East Africa) provide food for millions of people in one of the world’s poorest regions. Due to climate change and overfishing, the clupeid stocks of Lake Tanganyika are declining. We investigate the population structure of the Lake Tanganyika sprat Stolothrissa tanganicae, using for the first time a...

The Ceratitis FAR complex (Diptera, Tephritidae) includes four economically important frugivorous flies ( Ceratitis anonae , Ceratitis fasciventris , Ceratitis quilicii , Ceratitis rosa ) whose immature stages and adult females cannot be properly resolved through morphological identification. In order to develop a simplified molecular tool for the...

Mango (Mangifera indica L.) is an important crop in sub-Saharan Africa as source of nutrition for rural population and source of income for farmers (Vayssières et al., 2008). Infestation of fruit flies is considered to be the main constraint on mango production in Mozambique. Direct damage of 94.0% have been reported in the Northern region. Bactroc...

The parallel sequencing of targeted amplicons is a scalable application of next-generation sequencing (NGS) that can advantageously replace Sanger sequencing in certain DNA barcoding studies. It can be used to sequence different PCR products simultaneously, including co-amplified products. Here, we explore this approach by simultaneously sequencing...

Introduction – Mango (Mangifera indica L.) is a fruit species with high potential for reduction of hunger and poverty in Mozambique. However, the production of this crop is currently threatened by various fruit fly species, including Bactrocera dorsalis (Hendel) and Ceratitis cosyra (Walker). Their occurrence in Mozambique needed to be assessed. Ma...

The efficacy of different attractant trap combinations for monitoring of Afrotropical fruit flies was evaluated in commercial fruit production areas and natural areas in the northern parts of South Africa. Five food-based attractants: three-component Biolure, a combination of ammonium acetate and trimethylamine, a combination of ammonium acetate an...

Enriched ginger oil (EGO) is a new male attractant for Ceratitis (Diptera: Tephritidae) species. The relative sensitivity of three Ceratitis pest species, C. capitata, C. rosa and C. cosyra, and their distance-dependent responses to EGO were determined using mark-release-recapture trials in three commercial fruit orchards in Mpumalanga, South Afric...

The mango fruit fly, Ceratitis (Ceratalaspis) cosyra, is a major agricultural pest affecting mango production in sub-Saharan Africa. Morphological differences between C. cosyra and five closely related Ceratitis (Ceratalaspis) species (C. discussa, C. pallidula, C. quinaria, C. silvestrii, C. striatella) are subtle, so that their identification oft...

The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used t...

Figure S1: Database schema. Diversity data in yellow, GIS data in green and Catalogue of Life data in blue. The diversity tables datasource, study, site, measuredtaxon and diversitymeasurement follow the structure described in ‘Methods’ in the main text and in Hudson et al. (2014): a datasource is associated with one or more study records, each of...

Population genetics studies provide valuable information about the patterns of connectivity and range expansion of African frugivorous fruit flies. Human-mediated movements related to trade of commodities and transport are generally indicated as one of the primary mechanisms by which tephritid pests expand their contemporary and historical ranges....

The current classification of African tephritids is the interim result of a continuous process of minor and major changes that, in the last 20 years, has resulted in the description of more than 60 new species from the seven tephritid genera of main economic relevance in Africa (Bactrocera, Capparimyia, Ceratitis, Dacus, Neoceratitis, Trirhithrum a...

Accurate species delimitation underpins good taxonomy. Formalization of integrative taxonomy in the past decade has provided a framework for using multidisciplinary data to make species delimitation hypotheses more rigorous. We address the current state of integrative taxonomy by using as a case study an international project targeted at resolving...

This paper describes five new Ceratitis species from the eastern and southern parts of the Afrotropical Region: C. (Pterandrus) quilicii De Meyer, Mwatawala & Virgilio sp. nov.; C. (Ceratalaspis) pallidula De Meyer, Mwatawala & Virgilio sp. nov.; C. (Ceratalaspis) taitaensis De Meyer & Copeland sp. nov.; C. (Ceratalaspis) sawahilensis De Meyer & Vi...

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...

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 wi...

This paper reviews all information gathered from different disciplines and studies to resolve the species status within the Ceratitis FAR (C. fasciventris, C. anonae, C. rosa) complex, a group of polyphagous fruit fly pest species (Diptera, Tephritidae) from Africa. It includes information on larval and adult morphology, wing morphometrics, cuticul...

The fruit fly Ceratitis cosyra is an important agricultural pest negatively affecting the mango crop production throughout Africa and also feeding on a variety of other wild and cultivated hosts. The occurrence of deeply divergent haplotypes, as well as extensive morphological variability, previously suggested possible cryptic speciation within C....

Two standard parapheromones, trimedlure (routinely used for monitoring Ceratitis rosa and C. capitata) and terpinyl acetate (routinely used for monitoring C. cosyra) were compared with enriched ginger root oil (EGO) lure for detecting and monitoring the presence and relative population abundance of these particular pest species. Standard yellow fru...

Previous attempts to resolve the Ceratitis FAR complex (C. fasciventris, C. anonae, C. rosa, Diptera, Tephritidae) showed contrasting results and revealed the occurrence of five microsatellite genotypic clusters (A, F1, F2, R1, R2). In this paper we explore the potential of wing morphometrics for the diagnosis of FAR morphospecies and genotypic clu...

Map of sampling locations

Wing landmarks and wing band areas

Preliminary methodological experiment: unconstrained ordination of wing band areas

Constrained ordination of wing band areas

Genus Zeugodacus (Diptera, Tephritidae), list of valid species

Wing landmarks and wing band areas

Preliminary methodological experiment: unconstrained ordination of wing landmarks

Unconstrained ordination of wing landmarks across sexes of each morphospecies

Individual assignments to genotypic clusters A, F1, F2, R1, R2

Morphometric differences across genotypic clusters (wing band areas)

Morphometric data

Unconstrained ordination of wing landmarks

Constrained ordination of wing landmarks

Average individual assignments

Unconstrained ordination of wing band areas

Morphometric differences across morphospecies (wing band areas)

Pearson’s Chi-squared test for Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium

Genotype accumulation curve

Map of sampling locations

Observed and expected heterozygosity

Estimated null allele proportions

Linkage disequilibrium

STRUCTURE sequential assignments

Introduction. Host preference of Zeugodacus cucurbitae in three vegetables was determined under choice and no-choice experiments. Materials and methods. The experiments were conducted in both semi-natural (under cage) and natural (no cage) field conditions. The trials were run for three seasons between March 2013 and July 2014 in Morogoro Region, T...

The identification of Afrotropical hoverflies is very difficult because of limited recent taxonomic revisions and the lack of comprehensive identification keys. In order to assist in their identification, and to improve the taxonomy of this group, we constructed a reference dataset of 513 COI barcodes of 90 of the more common nominal species from G...

The identification of Afrotropical hoverflies is very difficult because of limited recent taxo-nomic revisions and the lack of comprehensive identification keys. In order to assist in their identification, and to improve the taxonomy of this group, we constructed a reference data-set of 513 COI barcodes of 90 of the more common nominal species from...

Discrimination of particular species within the species complexes of tephritid fruit flies is a very challenging task. In this fruit-fly family, several complexes of cryptic species have been reported, including the African cryptic species complex (FAR complex). Cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) appear to be an excellent tool for chemotaxonomical discr...

Sixteen new polymorphic microsatellite loci were developed for a tephritid of economic importance in many African countries, Ceratitis cosyra. These markers were tested on field populations from four African countries of its endemic range: Burkina Faso, Tanzania, Burundi and Ethiopia. Low to high polymorphic loci are described (from 3 to 21 alleles...