CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

The sterile insect technique (SIT) is used for the management of tephritid fruit flypests. The South American fruit fly, Anastrepha fraterculus (Wiedemann) (Diptera:Tephritidae), is one potential pest to be targeted by means of SIT. The success of SITdepends, to a large extent, on the sexual performance of sterile males. Various approacheshave been evaluated with the aim of improving their sexual performance.These include the exposure to plant-derived compounds and/or the provision ofprotein sources in the adults´ diet capable of stimulating male mating success. Thepresent study aimed to determine whether exposure to volatiles of Citrus limon (L.)Burm. F. (Rutaceae) essential oil and limonene confers a mating advantage to A. fraterculuslaboratory males fed two distinct dietary regimes when competing with wildmales for wild females under field cage conditions. Dietary regimes were, one, withnon-hydrolysed brewer´s yeast and sugar (1:3 ratio), and the other with brewer´s yeasthydrolysate enzymatic and sugar (1:12 ratio). The effect was evaluated in four variablesassociated with mating success: number of copulas obtained, latency to mate, copuladuration, and copula location. Exposure to volatiles did not affect the number of matingsachieved, irrespective of the diet given to the males. When laboratory males werefed with brewer´s yeast hydrolysate, the effect of volatile exposure was shown in latencyto mate, copula duration, and copula location. When the laboratory males werefed with non-hydrolysed brewer´s yeast, the effect of volatile exposure was shownonly in copula duration. Regarding the number of copulas obtained, laboratory malesfed brewer´s yeast hydrolysate achieved the same number of matings as wild males,whereas laboratory males fed non-hydrolysed brewer´s yeast had lower performance

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