Evaluation of lufenuron as a chemosterilant against fruit flies of the genus Anastrepha (Diptera: Tephritidae).

Background: Chemosterilisation with lufenuron bait stations is a recently developed technique that is being implemented for Ceratitis capitata Wiedemann control. The aim of this work was to evaluate the chemosterilising effect of lufenuron against four economically important Latin American fruit flies species: Anastrepha ludens (Loew.), A. obliqua Macquart, A. serpentina Wiedemann and A. striata Schiner (Diptera: Tephritidae) in order to design a similar strategy for their control.

Results: Sexually mature adults were treated by ingestion with concentrations ranging from 0.1 to 30.0 mg g(-1) of lufenuron in the diet. In addition, conspecific crosses with only one of the sexes being treated (30.0 mg g(-1)) were performed in order to appraise the contribution of each sex to the sterilising effect. In all cases, fecundity was not affected by the treatments, as opposed to fertility where all Anastrepha species studied were significantly affected, although to different extents. The conspecific crosses showed that treated males of A. ludens, A. obliqua and A. serpentina were not able to transmit the sterility to their respective untreated females. Only in the case of A. striata did crossing treated males with untreated females significantly reduced egg hatch.

Conclusion: Although further investigations are required, the present results demonstrate that the use of lufenuron for controlling A. striata could be potentially viable.