Application of Nuclear Techniques to Improve the Mass Production and Management of Fruit Fly Parasitoids

Abstract

The use of irradiated hosts in mass rearing tephritid parasitoids represents an important technical advance in fruit fly augmentative biological control. Irradiation assures that fly emergence is avoided in non-parasitized hosts, while at the same time it has no appreciable effect on parasitoid quality, i.e., fecundity, longevity and flight capability. Parasitoids of fruit fly eggs, larvae and pupae have all been shown to successfully develop in irradiated hosts, allowing a broad range of species to be shipped and released without post-rearing delays waiting for fly emergence and costly procedures to separate flies and wasps. This facilitates the early, more effective and less damaging shipment of natural enemies within hosts and across quarantined borders. In addition, the survival and dispersal of released parasitoids can be monitored by placing irradiated sentinel-hosts in the field. The optimal radiation dosages for host-sterility and parasitoid-fitness differ among species, and considerable progress has been made in integrating radiation into a variety of rearing procedures.

From laboratory to the field: consistent effects of experience on host location by the fruit fly parasitoid Diachasmimorpha kraussii (Hymenoptera: Braconidae)

“…In our paper we have directly tested and proved the viability of this concept: certainly for the first time in fruit fly parasitoids and, to the best of our knowledge, only for the second time with parasitoids, the first being the work of Hare and colleagues with Aphytis (Hare, ; Hare et al ., ; Hare & Morgan, ) referred to in the Introduction. Fruit fly parasitoid mass rearing for inundative biological control release is an area of ongoing work for tephritid researchers (Spinner et al ., ; Ovruski & Schliserman, ; Garcia & Ricalde, ) and there is intent to explicitly link parasitoid release with sterile fruit fly release (Gurr & Kvedaras, ; Cancino et al ., ). As demonstrated here and elsewhere in the literature (Messing & Jang, ; Ero et al ., ; Ero & Clarke, ; Segura et al ., ), the opiine parasitoids are known to show innate preferences between host fruits.…”

Review of the role of gut microbiota in mass rearing of the olive fruit fly,Bactrocera oleae, and its parasitoids

“…It is a general practice that host medfly larvae are irradiated before exposing them to parasitoids (Cancino et al, 2012;Yokoyama et al, 2012). This practice causes the medflies to die before emergence, thus eliminating the risk of releasing fertile hosts in the target area, as well as eliminating the need to sort the parasitoid-infested from the non-infested hosts before the parasitoids are released into the field.…”

“…This practice causes the medflies to die before emergence, thus eliminating the risk of releasing fertile hosts in the target area, as well as eliminating the need to sort the parasitoid-infested from the non-infested hosts before the parasitoids are released into the field. Both gamma and x-ray irradiation do not seem to have major negative impacts on the quality of medfly (Cancino et al, 2012) and Anastrepha fraterculus (Wiedemann) (Bachmann et al, 2015) for use in rearing of D. longicaudata. Although a decrease in the number of mature eggs in adult females was observed, this did not affect the number of progeny in P. humilis (Yokoyama et al, 2010(Yokoyama et al, , 2012.…”

Irradiation of early immature Anastrepha ludens stages for the rearing of Doryctobracon areolatus (Hymenoptera: Braconidae), a fruit fly parasitoid

“…One of the main tools with which to achieve efficient mass rearing of fruit fly parasitoids is the use of irradiated hosts (Hendrichs et al, 2009). This facilitates the processes of production and the release of the natural enemy into the field since no adult emergence takes place from the irradiated hosts (Cancino et al, 2012(Cancino et al, , 2016.…”

“…Preliminary studies show that the use of A. ludens as a host for the rearing of D. areolatus represents a better option than Anastrepha obliqua Macquart (Pérez, 2019), since it is possible to obtain higher parasitism and a sex ratio more biased towards females. Although there is information about the use of irradiated early stages of fruit flies for rearing parasitoids (Palenchar et al, 2009;Cancino et al, 2012;Costa et al, 2016), the possibility of using this method to rear D. areolatus under laboratory conditions remains unexplored. The objectives of this study were therefore to: (1) determine the effect of different radiation doses on the development of A. ludens eggs and first and second instar larvae, and (2) evaluate the viability of these irradiated hosts for the development of the parasitoid D. areolatus under laboratory rearing conditions.…”