BATCH PRODUCTION OF NON-TRANSGENIC, MALE-ONLY SPOTTED WING DROSOPHILA FOR BIOCONTROL.

Insects cause an estimated $7B damage to global food production despite using the best available control methods. Current management strategies of using chemicals for their control often cause harm to non-target species. Sterile Insect Technique approaches have been shown to be effective in a variety of different species but suffers from wide adoption due to the need for laborious method to separate males and challenge of using radiation for sterilization. New measures have been developed using genetic engineering which either introduce a dominant lethal transgene into the insect population or rely on engineered insects rendered sterile. In either of the cases there is a risk for transgene spreading throughout the population and potentially unintentional consequences. There is a need for control methods that are species-specific broadly applicable to diverse insect cost-effective to allow scale-up for control on a regional or national scale and allow limiting gene flow between insects. We have developed a novel method called 'subtractive transgene sex sorting' (STSS) that leverages different genetic tools to produce non-transgenic males. These males can be sterilized using existing methods and released for biocontrol. This approach forgoes manual sex separation and can be adapted to any sexually reproducing organism. The introduced insects and their traits will be removed from the population as soon as they die. Here we propose to evaluate the system in the agricultural pest spottted wing drosophila for biocontrol. Successful completion of this project would lead commercial biocontrol of spotted wing drosophila using this approach.