Improved quality management to enhance the efficacy of the sterile insect technique for lepidopteran pests

Abstract

Lepidoptera are among the most severe pests of food and fibre crops in the world and are mainly controlled using broad spectrum insecticides. This does not lead to environmentally sustainable control and farmers are demanding alternative control tools which are both effective and friendly to the environment. The sterile insect technique (SIT), within an area‐wide integrated pest management (AW‐IPM) approach, has proven to be a powerful control tactic for the creation of pest‐free areas or areas of low pest prevalence. Improving the quality of laboratory‐reared moths would increase the efficacy of released sterile moths applied in AW‐IPM programmes that integrate the (SIT). Factors that might affect the quality and field performance of released sterile moths are identified and characterized in this study. Some tools and methods to measure, predict and enhance moth quality are described such as tests for moth quality, female moth trapping systems, ‘smart’ traps, machine vision for recording behaviour, marking techniques, and release technologies. Methods of enhancing rearing systems are discussed with a view to selecting and preserving useful genetic traits that improve field performance.

Modeling the Sterile Insect Technique for Suppression of Light Brown Apple Moth (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae)

“…There are many quality assays that measure the physical capabilities of the released insect, such as the ability to fly in a wind tunnel or be recaptured after release Stringer et al 2013). But possibly the most important quality to measure is the mass-reared insects drive and ability to mate (Simmons et al 2010;Kean et al 2011). By slightly modifying a commercially available locomotion activity monitor so that air could flow through the tubes, we were able to test the response of laboratory-reared LBAM males to the 4-component sex pheromone.…”

“…When undertaking an area-wide program that includes the release of sterile males, it is important to determine the competitiveness of the insects being released in order to have the highest chance at success (Simmons et al 2010;Kean et al 2011). There are many quality assays that measure the physical capabilities of the released insect, such as the ability to fly in a wind tunnel or be recaptured after release Stringer et al 2013).…”

“…Wind tunnel assessment has been used to determine the effect of irradiation and other factors on male Australian painted apple moth arrival at a female (Suckling et al 2004;Stephens et al 2006) with quality assessment performed weekly during the painted apple moth eradication program in New Zealand (Suckling et al 2004;Simmons et al 2010). The evaluation proved to be valuable at detecting and improving insect quality by altering the handling process (Stephens et al 2006).…”

“…The SIT requires assessment of the effects of irradiation and other factors on insect quality (Vreysen 2005), and considerable effort has been expended on this for fruit flies (Cáceres et al 2007), and more recently moths (Simmons et al 2010). Many authors have used simple activity measures for flies, such as flight ability out of a cylinder, but this approach may have limitations for moths.…”

Global range expansion of pest Lepidoptera requires socially acceptable solutions

“…3 Schematic diagram of generic steps expected in the potential development of eradication tools for Lepidoptera, based on painted apple moth of these critical aspects were addressed in an FAO/ IAEA coordinated research project entitled ''Increasing the efficiency of Lepidoptera SIT by enhanced quality control'' which was implemented between 2008 and 2014, and reported in a special issue of the Florida Entomologist (Vreysen et al 2016). The use of the SIT has been limited to only a few operational programs against Lepidoptera for long term pest suppression (codling moth in Canadian apples and false codling moth in South African citrus) or eradication (pink bollworm in US cotton, Australian painted apple moth in urban New Zealand and cactus moth on islands in Mexico) ) but assessment of moth quality was investigated on a wider range of species (Simmons et al 2010;Vreysen et al 2016). The SIT requires mass-rearing and release of sterile insects with competitive field performance, which creates a major threshold for entry through the need for a specialised factory, which is a capital cost hurdle that in part explains the small number of cases (Fig.…”