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High productivity gel diets for rearing of Queensland fruit fly, Bactrocera tryoni

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Abstract

The Queensland fruit fly or ‘Q-fly,’ Bactrocera tryoni (Froggatt) (Diptera: Tephritidae), is Australia’s most damaging insect pest of horticulture. The sterile insect technique (SIT) is being developed as a sustainable approach to management of Q-fly. New larval diets are needed for economical production of millions of artificially reared sterile flies that are required for use in SIT. Solid diets that incorporate biological bulking agents present problems of variable quality and waste disposal. Liquid diets emerged as a promising alternative, but these also suffer drawbacks, including separation of components, fermentation and need for cleaning and regular replacement of substrates that support developing larvae. The present study considers whether two promising liquid diet formulations might be improved by incorporating agar (0, 0.25, 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5%) to create semiliquid or gel diets that maintain consistent composition, suppress fermentation, negate the need for supporting substrates and minimize waste. Overall, gel diets containing greater than 0.5% agar outperformed liquid diets (0% agar) and semiliquid diets (0.25% agar) of identical nutritional composition, especially in terms of development rate and productivity. Flies from the two tested diet formulations differed in flight performance, and this likely reflects differences in concentration of wheat germ oil and/or the type of yeast used. Overall, gel diets show great promise for rearing of Q-fly, overcoming many of the constraints of both traditional solid diets and more recently developed liquid diets. There is now a need for larger-scale trials that test and refine these diets for use in operational SIT settings.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of staff at department of Primary Industry, New South Wales, Australia, especially Andrew Jessup who generously provided the eggs of Q-fly. We also thank the reviewers of this study for their constructive suggestions. This project has been funded by Horticulture Innovation Australia Limited with co-investment from Macquarie University and funds from the Australian Government and is a component of the SIT plus Research and Development initiative. TM was supported by Macquarie University Research Excellence Scholarship.

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  1. Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia

    Tahereh Moadeli, Phillip W. Taylor & Fleur Ponton

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  1. Tahereh Moadeli
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  2. Phillip W. Taylor
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  3. Fleur Ponton
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Correspondence to Tahereh Moadeli.

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This study involves the rearing of fruit flies.

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This study involves the rearing of fruit flies.

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Communicated by M. Traugott.

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Moadeli, T., Taylor, P.W. & Ponton, F. High productivity gel diets for rearing of Queensland fruit fly, Bactrocera tryoni . J Pest Sci 90, 507–520 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10340-016-0813-0

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