From the earliest agricultural societies across the Fertile Crescent, Mesoamerica, and the Indian subcontinent, pests have been less an anomaly than a constant. Losses followed, explanations evolved, sometimes out of step with evidence, and control measures emerged through a curious blend of necessity, ingenuity, and a pinch of faith. Sulfur, plant extracts, and trial-and-error marked the beginnings. Millennia later, the central triad remains unchanged: plants, pests, and pesticides. What has shifted, perhaps more than we admit, is the context in which they interact.

Modern agroecosystems are not just more intensive; they are more entangled. Pest assemblages shift, cropping systems simplify or diversify, and pesticides, far from receding, continue to expand, now through biopesticides, novel formulations, and new modes of use. These are often framed as safer, more selective, even benign. They may be. Yet the evidence, read with some care, is less reassuring than the narrative suggests.

Off-target effects rarely announce themselves. They permeate, accumulate. They persist in altered behaviors, impaired reproduction, and disrupted trophic links. Effects that seem negligible in isolation but grow in consequence when scaled up. Biological control, often cast as the ecological counterbalance to chemical inputs, sits uneasily within this tension. We depend on it, and at times, we erode it. Quietly, and not always unintentionally.

Risk assessment frameworks, still largely anchored in mortality and simplified exposure scenarios, appear increasingly strained. Paracelsus’ familiar dictum, that the dose makes the poison, still holds, but only up to a point. Duration, context, interaction, and even low-dose stimulation complicate the picture, occasionally to the point of contradiction. If this feels inconvenient, it likely is.

This Collection invites contributions that resist simplification. We welcome studies on sublethal, behavioral, and transgenerational effects; indirect and cascading impacts across trophic levels; and the uneasy interface between pesticides and biological control. Work that bridges laboratory precision with field realism, revisits regulatory assumptions, or questions the safety of “greener” solutions will be particularly timely.

The aim is not to indict pesticides, nor to romanticize alternatives, but to look more carefully at what is gained, what is traded off, and what tends to go unnoticed. Because pest management seldom fails outright, it more often succeeds just enough to hide its cost.

This Collection is led by Raul Narciso Carvalho Guedes as the Leading Guest Editor.

This collection brings together multidisciplinary research that advances our understanding of the ecology, behavior, and management of tephritid fruit flies. It highlights emerging biological insights, innovative control approaches, and sustainable strategies aimed at improving pest monitoring and intervention in a changing global environment.

True fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) represent a key model system at the interface of ecology, evolution, and applied pest management, and continue to pose major challenges to fruit production worldwide. This article collection aims to bring together high-quality research and review articles that advance our understanding of the biological processes underlying the success, spread, and management of these pests. We welcome studies that bridge fundamental and applied research, providing novel insights into the mechanisms shaping fruit fly interactions with their environment, as well as innovative approaches to their control. By integrating diverse perspectives and methodological approaches, this issue seeks to highlight emerging directions and foster the development of more sustainable and effective management strategies for tephritid fruit flies in a rapidly changing world.

Specific topics included in the SI:

• Ecological studies on multitrophic interactions (fruit flies, host plants, natural enemies, microbes).
• Field-based population monitoring, invasion dynamics, and predictive modeling under climate change scenarios.
• Development of novel genetic tools to improve mass-rearing strains and sterile insect technique applications.
• Innovative behavioral and physiological studies addressing overlooked traits, communication systems, and context-dependent responses with applied or evolutionary relevance.
• Integrated pest management strategies combining sterile insects, attractants, biological control, and improved operational tools.