Senior Researcher, Department of Agriculture, Society and Environment El Colegio de la Frontera Sur Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico
In this study, the effects of different colony management in male mating competitiveness of Anastrepha ludens (Loew) over 7 generations were determined. The treatments evaluated were originated from 4 different colony management systems: a) hybrid (a colony started from the hybridization of wild males with mass-reared adapted females), b) selection (a colony started with mass-reared males selected by their survival ability and mating competitiveness), c) replacement (a colony started by parental flies from wild populations), and d) laboratory control (a colony from mass-reared males and wild males). The male sexual performance from these rearing systems was evaluated in field cage conditions, where the males of each strain competed with wild males (wild collected from host fruits in each generation) to achieve mating with wild females. Our results indicated that the selection and hybrid systems led to an improvement in the male sexual performance in the first generation, but this effect was lost from the second generation. When the colony started from wild flies (Replacement), a marked loss of mating competitiveness was observed in the first generation, notably reestablishing in the seventh generation. The trends across the generations were different for each rearing system. Wild males showed less variation in their performance, but they were only significantly higher in F4 and F7. The feasibility of improvement the male mating competitiveness of A. ludens through selection and hybridization processes is discussed under a colony management context for SIT.
