Scientists in Greece are fighting fire with fire by releasing fruit flies in orchards to counter more destructive fruit flies, the Gist reported in a Phys.org article.
There are several problematic invasive fruit fly species in Europe today, including the oriental fruit fly and the peach fruit fly. These species are a problem because they have no natural predators in the area. And as our planet gets warmer, these flies are flourishing. The Mediterranean fruit fly, while native, is also a destructive presence.
"There have been seasons when, due to the Mediterranean fruit fly, we lost our production in just 15 days," orchard owner Savvas Pastopoulos told AFP via the Gist article.
The Mediterranean fruit fly is the target of the first stage of a new research project funded by the EU. Over the last four years, researchers from 12 countries have used $7.8 million to develop a way to precisely target a single species of fruit fly without using broad-spectrum pesticides that can damage the environment and harm humans.
Their method involves actually increasing the fruit fly population for a brief period: they release sterile male fruit flies into the target area.
The flies for release are produced in a lab and fed a healthy diet that keeps them in better shape than wild flies. They go on to mate with wild females, preventing the females from mating with wild males.
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Since the lab-grown males are sterile, their mating results in no eggs, which eventually lowers the fruit fly population. So far, the tests have been a success.
"Our approach is to locally eradicate Mediterranean fruit fly populations and then apply this knowledge to other species of interest, such as the oriental fruit fly and the peach fruit fly," said project participant Nikos Papadopoulos, who teaches Applied Entomology at the University of Thessaly, per the Gist article.
Similar tests using genetically modified fruit flies are taking place in North Carolina.
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