Juvenile hormone treatment accelerates male sexual maturation in Anastrepha fraterculus

DIEGO F. SEGURA; MARÍA T. VERA; MARÍA F. RODRÍGUEZ; MARÍA E. UTGÉS; JUAN C. VILARDI; PETER TEAL; JORGE L. CLADERA

Salvador de Bahia, Brasil.

Congreso; 7th International Symposium on Fruit Flies of Economic Importance.; 2006

The South American fruit fly, Anastrepha fraterculus, is a major fruit pest in Argentina and the region. Ongoing studies regarding mass rearing, sexual competitiveness, and survival of sterile males in the field, envision a promising future for the development of the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) in order to control this pest. The time required for laboratory reared males of A. fraterculus to become mature and search for mates is approximately 7 days after emergence. A reduction in this time would save costs, improving the implementation of SIT against this species. We studied here the effect of methoprene, a juvenile hormone analogue, on the process of sexual maturation for A. fraterculus males. We applied 1 ìl of methoprene dissolved in acetone, at a concentration of 5ìg/ìl. Two control groups were compared: untreated males and males treated with 1ìl of pure acetone. Sexual maturation was evaluated using two behavioral indicators of maturity: pheromone calling and mating. The result was that males treated with methoprene mature significantly faster than untreated males, reaching sexual maturity around day 4. In addition, we analyzed the effect of acetone on survival. We found that acetone treated males did not show any difference in survival compared to untreated males. We conclude that the time required for A. fraterculus males to reach sexual maturity could be shortened by the application of the JH analogue methoprene, as happened in other Anastrepha species such as A. suspensa. This treatment will effectively accelerate sexual maturation of males with no detrimental effects of acetone on their survival.