Exposing Entire Adult Holding Rooms Containing Sterile Male Mediterranean Fruit Flies to OrangE Oil Increases the Mating Success of Those Males in Field-cage Trials

Abstract

A previous study demonstrated that exposing entire rooms holding mass-reared males of the Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata (Wied.), to the aroma of ginger root oil increased mating success relative to that observed for non-exposed males. Here, we followed the same experimental protocol to test whether the aroma of orange oil similarly enhanced male mating performance. Working at an eclosion facility in California, we exposed trailers (132 m3) containing ≈ 14 million C. capitata males from a genetic sexing (tsl, temperature sensitive lethal) strain to orange oil aroma for 24 h and compared mating success of non-exposed or ginger root oil-exposed tsl males in field-cage trials (in which tsl males competed against males from a standard, bisexual strain for females from this same standard strain). Both orange oil- and ginger root oil-exposed tsl males achieved a significantly greater proportion of the total matings than non-exposed (to any aroma) tsl males. No difference in relative mating success was observed between orange oil- and ginger root oil-exposed tsl males. As orange oil is considerably less expensive than ginger root oil, its use could reduce costs substantially.