The development and ecology of a Tephritidae larval-diet

The sterile insect technique (SIT) strategy, used especially in the control of fruit flies (Tephritidae), requires the mass-production and sterilization of millions of insects to be released periodically into the wild in area-wide projects. This emerging control industry is based on the ability of serially and modularly producing very large quantities of sterile insects at an economic price. One of the main, and more costly, components in the production of sterile Tephritidae fruit flies is the larval diet. The present talk describes the development and the ecology (i.e., interactions between biotic and abiotic factors in the diet ecosystem and their dynamics) of a larval diet being developed in our laboratory for the Ethiopian fruit fly, Dacus ciliatus, which was detected several years ago, and is being contained in the Southern areas of Israel.