Unfaithful Mediterranean fruit fly Ceratitis capitata females: Impact on the SIT?

Abstract

An understanding of the levels of remating and paternity skew in the field can be important for polyphagous pest species with a high colonization potential such as the Mediterranean fruit fly Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann). The use of polymorphic simple sequence repeats on flies from two Mediterranean populations in combination with various statistical methods showed not only that Mediterranean fruit fly females remate in the wild, but most importantly, that the level of sperm precedence could influence the effect of remating itself since one male, presumably the last, tends to sire most of the progeny. Levels of remating and paternity skew may have important implications for the evolution of the species in terms of maintenance of genetic variability. Moreover, these features of mating behaviour may locally affect the efficiency of the sterile insect technique (SIT), which is a commonly applied control strategy against the Mediterranean fruit fly.