Mediterranean Fruit Fly (Diptera: Tephritidae): Mating Choices of Irradiated Laboratory-Reared and Untreated Wild Flies of California in Laboratory Cages

Abstract

Mating choices of laboratory-reared and wild (F.) Mediterranean fruit flies (medflies), Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann), were studied in laboratory cages. When laboratory-reared medflies irradiated with 14.5 krad and dyed were compared with wild medflies from California, no significant differences in choice of mating partner were found in cages containing wild and USDA-ARS (AR) laboratory-reared medflies or in cages containing wild and California-Hawaii (CH) laboratory-reared medflies. But in cages containing wild and Mexico (MX) laboratory-reared medflies, the wild males preferred mating with wild females and the MX males preferred MX females. In the tests combining all four types of medflies (AR, CH, MX, and wild) in one cage, mating of wild females was significantly lower with MX males compared with wild males, but was not significantly different with AR or CH males. However, the mating speed with which wild males found and copulated with wild females in these cage tests was significantly faster than with all three types of laboratory reared medflies.