Spotted-wing Drosophila (Diptera: Drosophilidae): the southernmost records affecting wild and cultivated fruits and vegetables in the Chilean Patagonia

The spotted wing Drosophila (SWD), Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura 1931), is an invasive species of ripening soft fruit, first reported in Japan in 1916 and widely distributed worldwide in the past 20 yr. In Chile, this fly was reported in 2017. Since then, this fly has spread throughout much of the country, including desert climates in the north and cold-temperate climates in the south. The SWD is considered an economically important pest of berries, cherries, and grapes, affecting not only cultivated crops but also wild species. In the Chilean Patagonia, fruits and vegetables are cultivated on a small scale for home consumption and sale in local markets. Growers use low inputs and few or no insecticides, mostly due to environmental concerns and the scarcity of crop protection products, including insecticides. In this paper, we report the presence of SWD in wild and cultivated crops in the Chilean Patagonia as a result of a survey conducted in Futaleufú, Palena Medio, Palena Alto, and Ayacara in the Huequi peninsula, expanding its global range, where the cold climate and the Andes mountains were insufficient to prevent the spread of SWD. As far as we know, by the time this manuscript was prepared, no previous reports had been published in the scientific literature about the SWD in the Chilean Patagonia.