Background: The sterile insect technique (SIT) is emerging as a tool to supplement traditional pesticide-based control of Aedes aegypti, a prominent mosquito vector of microbes that has increased the global burden of human morbidity and mortality over the past 50 years. SIT relies on rearing, sterilizing and releasing large numbers of male mosquitoes that will mate with fertile wild females, thus reducing production of offspring from the target population. In this study, we investigated the effects of ionizing radiation (gamma) on male and female survival, longevity, mating behavior, and sterility of Ae. aegypti in a dose-response design. This work is a first step towards developing an operational SIT field suppression program against Ae. aegypti in St

Aedes aegypti is a prominent disease vector that is difficult to control through traditional integrated vector management due to its cryptic peridomestic immature-stage habitat and adult resting behavior, increasing resistance to pesticide formulations approved by the US Environmental Protection Agency, escalating deregistration of approved pesticides, and slow development of new effective chemical control measures. One novel method to control Ae. aegypti is the sterile insect technique (SIT) that leverages the mass release of irradiated (sterilized) males to overwhelm mate choice of natural populations of females. However, one potential liability of SIT is sex sorting errors prior to irradiation, resulting in accidental release of females. Our goal in this study was to test the extent to which irradiation affects female life-history parameters to assess the potential impacts of releasing irradiated females accidentally sorted with males. In this study, we determined that a radiation dose ≥30 Gy—a dose sufficient to sterilize males while preserving their mating competitiveness—may substantially impact longevity, bloodfeeding, oviposition, and egg hatch rate of female Ae. aegypti after being irradiated as pupae. These findings could reduce public concern for accidental release of females alongside irradiated males in an operational Ae. aegypti SIT control program.

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