Measuring mortality and reproduction in large cohorts of the mediterranean fruit fly

Although historically the Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata, commonly known as the medfly, has not been used as a model species for aging research as extensively as Drosophila, the experimental protocols and procedures for its study at the whole organism level are well developed due to its economic importance. Methods for rearing this species have been improved as a result of advances in the "sterile insect technique" (Schwarz et al. 1985, Vargas 1989, Hendrichs et al. 1995). Whereas Drosophila are ideal genetics research models due to their genetic variability, abundance of genetic markers, large salivary gland chromosomes and ease of culturing, medflies are well suited as demographic research models due to their large size, robustness, and ease of sex determination. Medflies and related fruit fly species in the dipteran family Tephritidae ("true" fruit flies) also make good demographic models because, unlike Drosophila which lay their eggs directly in the moist adult food, medfly adults will feed on a dry mixture of sugar and yeast but lay their eggs in a separate medium such as artificial (agar) hosts (Freeman and Carey 1990) or organdy mesh (Vargas 1989). Thus, by introducing or removing the egging medium, researchers can manipulate the timing and rate of reproduction for studies on the cost of reproduction (e.g., Reznick 1985). eng