Essential oils from schinus polygama and baccharis spartioides enhance mating competitiveness of Anastrepha fraterculus males.

JOFRÉ-BARUD, F.; JUÁREZ, M. L.; RUIZ, M. J.; GOANE, L.; VALLADARES, G.; BACHMANN, G. E.; SEGURA, D.; FERNÁNDEZ, P.; LÓPEZ, M. L.; VERA, M.T.

Congreso; 1st Joint Meeting ISCE/ALAEQ; 2016

The sexual performance of mass-reared males is a key factor for the success of the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT). For the Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata (Wied.), mating competitiveness is increased through the exposure of males to the volatiles of ginger root oil (GRO) and operational programs that release sterile insects implemented its use. In previous studies with essential oils of native species, we showed that the essential oils of Schinus polygama (Cav.) Cabrera and Baccharis spartioides (Hook. & Arn.) Remy confer a mating advantage over non-exposed males. The objective of this study was to evaluatewhether the same effect is observed for the South American fruit fly, Anastrephafraterculus (Wied.). Males from a laboratory colony of A. fraterculus were exposed to the volatiles of the essential oils of S. polygama, B. spartioides and GRO. For each essential oil, one exposed male and one non-exposed male were caged with a virgin female in a mating arena. The number of matings pairs obtained by each type of male, the latency to mate and the duration of the copula were recorded for each treatment. Results showed that the essential oil of S. polygama conferred a mating advantage to A. fraterculus males over non-exposed males (65.1 % vs 34.9%, respectively, p=0.0020).A similar effect wasobserved for the B. spartioides essential oil (65.7 vs 34.2%, p= 0.0078). GRO did not increase the number of mating pairs (p > 0.05). No significant differences were observed for latency and copula duration between exposed and non-exposed males in any of the treatments. This is the first time that essential oils from native plants are reported to sexually enhance A. fraterculus males. Results are important in the context of the sexualbehaviour of A. fraterculus as well as in the development of the SIT for this species.