Proceedings of the XLV Italian Society of Agricultural Genetics - SIGA Annual Congress

Salsomaggiore Terme, Italy - 26/29 September, 2001

ISBN 88-900622-1-5

Poster Abstract

MULTIPLE MATING IN WILD CERATITIS CAPITATA STUDIED BY MICROSATELLITES

BONIZZONI M.*, CHAPMAN T.**, KATSOYANNOS B.***, GOMULSKI LM.*, TORTI C.*, GASPERI G.*, MALACRIDA AR.*

* Dipartmento di Biologia Animale, Università di Pavia

mariboni@unipv.it

** Deptartment of Biology, University College London, London, UK

*** Entomology Laboratory, University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

Sterile Insect Technique, mediterranean fruitfly, remating frequency

The Mediterranean fruitfly, Ceratitis capitata, is an extremely important and worldwide fruit pest. The sterile insect technique (SIT) remains the major environmentally benign method of eradication (Krafsur, 1998. J. Agric. Ent. 15: 303). However, many of the details by which SIT works remain poorly understood. For example it is not known whether wild females remate. Given the high degree of second male sperm precedence (Saul and McCombs 1993. Ann. Ent. Soc. Am. 81: 498), remating would be beneficial for SIT control if the partner is a sterile male, but not if it is a wild male.

To study multiple mating in wild C. capitata, wild adult females were collected on the island of Chios between June and September 2000. Twenty-five families were derived from these wild caught females. Remating frequency was determined by genotyping each female and her progeny at four microsatellite loci. The microsatellite loci were chosen from a set of more than 10 as the most polymorphic in a previous survey of Chios medflies (Bonizzoni et al., 2000. Insect Mol. Biol. 9: 251). Evidence for a remating was found in only one family among the 25 analysed. These results show that wild C. capitata females remate in the field, but at a low frequency.