Methoprene treatment and its effect on male reproductive organ size and female remating in a fruit fly

GIUDICE, LAURA ANTONELLA; DÍAZ, VIVIANA; MOYANO, ANDREA; PÉREZ-STAPLES DIANA; ABRAHAM SOLANA

BULLETIN OF ENTOMOLOGICAL RESEARCH

CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS

Lugar: Cambridge; Año: 2023

0007-4853

Methoprene, a juvenile hormone analog, is used to accelerate sexual maturation in males ofspecies of economic importance in support to the sterile insect technique (SIT). In the SIT,mass-reared sterile males are released into the field and need to survive until they reach sexualmaturation, find a wild female, mate with her and then induce female sexual refractoriness, soshe will not remate with a wild counterpart. The use of methoprene shortens the time betweenrelease and copulation. However, in South American fruit flies, Anastrepha fraterculus, theability of methoprene-treated males to inhibit female remating has been shown to be lowerthan wild males, when methoprene was applied by pupal immersion or topical application.Here we evaluated the possibility of incorporating methoprene into the male diet at differentdoses and the ability of those males to inhibit female remating, as well as the effect of methopreneon male reproductive organ size, due to the possible correlation between male accessorygland size and their content, and the role of male accessory gland proteins in femaleinhibition. We found that A. fraterculus males fed with methoprene in the adult proteindiet at doses as high as 1% were less likely to inhibit female remating, however, at all otherlower doses males had the same ability as untreated males to inhibit female remating.Males fed with methoprene had bigger male accessory glands and testes compared to methoprene-deprived males. We demonstrate that the incorporation of methoprene in adult malediets is possible in this species and potentially useful as a post-teneral, pre-release supplementat doses as low as 0.01%. Even at higher doses, the percentage of females remating after 48 hfrom the first copulation is sufficiently low in this species so as not compromise the efficiencyof the SIT.