Mating Competitiveness of Male Oriental Fruit Flies from a Translocation Strain (Diptera: Tephritidae)

Abstract

A major advance in sterile insect release programs against tephritid fruit fly pests has been the development of genetic sexing strains, which allow the production of males-only lines for field release. Genetic sexing strains both reduce the costs associated with mass rearing and enhance the mating effectiveness of sterile males. Research and application of genetic sexing strains has been limited largely to the Mediterranean fruit fly. However, translocation-based genetic sexing strains based on pupal color mutants have been constructed in the oriental fruit fly, Bactrocera dorsalis (Hendel). Here, we describe the results of laboratory tests on B. dorsalis that compared the relative success of males from a translocation-based sexing strain and wild males in mating competition for wild females. Additional tests examined the effect of irradiation and exposure to methyl eugenol on the mating frequency of males from the genetic sexing strain.