Pudar D, A Puggioli, F Balestrino, M Carrieri, D Petric, R Bellini
19th ESOVE Conference,
13-17 October 2014 – Thessaloniki, Greece
The capacity to mass-rear “good quality” males is of fundamental importance for the success of Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) against any pest or vector species. It is known that artificial rearing conditions strongly influence the fitness of the reared insects throughout selective processes and that adaptive phenomena may take place soon following the colonization with evident impact over few generations.
This experiment was focused on determining how strongly the size of the cage, a parameter which is under research in the mass-rearing of mosquitoes, could influence the fitness of reared adults during 20 generations.
The effect of colonization in three differently sized cages on the wing length, egg production and adult survival of Aedes albopictus (Skuse, 1895) was investigated. The wing length was selected as an easy parameter to measure morphological variable which is well correlated with the fitness of reared male mosquitoes.
Scarica poster