D3484: Developing a plate-based oviposition assay for agricultural pest fruit flies

Tuesday, November 12, 2024

9:00 AM – 5:00 PM MST

Location: Exhibit Hall 6

Presenting Author(s)

KR

Katrina Marie Rivera

University of Texas
Mission, Texas

Co-Author(s)

MA

Mariana Aguilar

University of Texas
Pharr, Texas
fD

frank Dirrigl

Professor
University of Texas
Edinburg, Texas
DF

Daniel Flores

Supervisory Entomologist
USDA-APHIS
Edinburg, Texas
Keun Chae

Biological Scientist
Texas A&M University
College Station, Texas

Mexican fruit fly (Anastrepha ludens) migrating from Southern America causes the significant loss in the citrus production of Lower Rio Grande Valley, TX. The year-round Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) operation releases millions of sterile flies daily to protect agricultural farms. Key feature of the SIT-based population control strategy is the mating competence of sterile males against wild-type females and a subsequential impact on offspring production. Our understanding of their mating competitiveness, fertility, or post-mating physiology is lacking. We developed a laboratory-scaled assay to score Mexfly’s copulatory and ovipositing behaviors. Assay includes a small cage (200 females), an egg-laying plate (named ‘oviplate’), which places the egging panel cloth on top of the agar cushion. The results revealed a rhythmic egg-laying behavior of females, displaying the highest rate of egg bundle production in 5-hr post oviposition (~2.4 per female). Eggs obtained from series of ovipositing durations (to 6-hr) showed an average egg hatching rate of 62.8%. While multiple days of copulation are required for a full level of fecundity (~10 bundles per female), limited time windows of copulation were also sufficient: ~7 per female in 3-hr; ~8 per female in 24-hr. Our work proposes a novel assay to be optimized for fruit fly mating and fertility for the SIT performance of various sterile strains.