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Genetic elimination of field-cage populations of Mediterranean fruit flies

The Mediterranean fruit fly (medfly, Ceratitis capitata Wiedemann) is a pest of over 300 fruits, vegetables and nuts. The sterile insect technique (SIT) is a control measure used to reduce the reproductive potential of populations through the mass release of sterilized male insects that mate with wi...

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Autores principales: Leftwich, Philip T., Koukidou, Martha, Rempoulakis, Polychronis, Gong, Hong-Fei, Zacharopoulou, Antigoni, Fu, Guoliang, Chapman, Tracey, Economopoulos, Aris, Vontas, John, Alphey, Luke
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4150327/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25122230
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2014.1372
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author Leftwich, Philip T.
Koukidou, Martha
Rempoulakis, Polychronis
Gong, Hong-Fei
Zacharopoulou, Antigoni
Fu, Guoliang
Chapman, Tracey
Economopoulos, Aris
Vontas, John
Alphey, Luke
author_facet Leftwich, Philip T.
Koukidou, Martha
Rempoulakis, Polychronis
Gong, Hong-Fei
Zacharopoulou, Antigoni
Fu, Guoliang
Chapman, Tracey
Economopoulos, Aris
Vontas, John
Alphey, Luke
author_sort Leftwich, Philip T.
collection PubMed
description The Mediterranean fruit fly (medfly, Ceratitis capitata Wiedemann) is a pest of over 300 fruits, vegetables and nuts. The sterile insect technique (SIT) is a control measure used to reduce the reproductive potential of populations through the mass release of sterilized male insects that mate with wild females. However, SIT flies can display poor field performance, due to the effects of mass-rearing and of the irradiation process used for sterilization. The development of female-lethal RIDL (release of insects carrying a dominant lethal) strains for medfly can overcome many of the problems of SIT associated with irradiation. Here, we present life-history characterizations for two medfly RIDL strains, OX3864A and OX3647Q. Our results show (i) full functionality of RIDL, (ii) equivalency of RIDL and wild-type strains for life-history characteristics, and (iii) a high level of sexual competitiveness against both wild-type and wild-derived males. We also present the first proof-of-principle experiment on the use of RIDL to eliminate medfly populations. Weekly releases of OX3864A males into stable populations of wild-type medfly caused a successive decline in numbers, leading to eradication. The results show that genetic control can provide an effective alternative to SIT for the control of pest insects.
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spelling pubmed-41503272014-10-07 Genetic elimination of field-cage populations of Mediterranean fruit flies Leftwich, Philip T. Koukidou, Martha Rempoulakis, Polychronis Gong, Hong-Fei Zacharopoulou, Antigoni Fu, Guoliang Chapman, Tracey Economopoulos, Aris Vontas, John Alphey, Luke Proc Biol Sci Research Articles The Mediterranean fruit fly (medfly, Ceratitis capitata Wiedemann) is a pest of over 300 fruits, vegetables and nuts. The sterile insect technique (SIT) is a control measure used to reduce the reproductive potential of populations through the mass release of sterilized male insects that mate with wild females. However, SIT flies can display poor field performance, due to the effects of mass-rearing and of the irradiation process used for sterilization. The development of female-lethal RIDL (release of insects carrying a dominant lethal) strains for medfly can overcome many of the problems of SIT associated with irradiation. Here, we present life-history characterizations for two medfly RIDL strains, OX3864A and OX3647Q. Our results show (i) full functionality of RIDL, (ii) equivalency of RIDL and wild-type strains for life-history characteristics, and (iii) a high level of sexual competitiveness against both wild-type and wild-derived males. We also present the first proof-of-principle experiment on the use of RIDL to eliminate medfly populations. Weekly releases of OX3864A males into stable populations of wild-type medfly caused a successive decline in numbers, leading to eradication. The results show that genetic control can provide an effective alternative to SIT for the control of pest insects. The Royal Society 2014-10-07 /pmc/articles/PMC4150327/ /pubmed/25122230 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2014.1372 Text en http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © 2014 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Articles
Leftwich, Philip T.
Koukidou, Martha
Rempoulakis, Polychronis
Gong, Hong-Fei
Zacharopoulou, Antigoni
Fu, Guoliang
Chapman, Tracey
Economopoulos, Aris
Vontas, John
Alphey, Luke
Genetic elimination of field-cage populations of Mediterranean fruit flies
title Genetic elimination of field-cage populations of Mediterranean fruit flies
title_full Genetic elimination of field-cage populations of Mediterranean fruit flies
title_fullStr Genetic elimination of field-cage populations of Mediterranean fruit flies
title_full_unstemmed Genetic elimination of field-cage populations of Mediterranean fruit flies
title_short Genetic elimination of field-cage populations of Mediterranean fruit flies
title_sort genetic elimination of field-cage populations of mediterranean fruit flies
topic Research Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4150327/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25122230
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2014.1372
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