In mosquito sterile insect technique(SIT),two colonies can be considered in mass-rearing facilities: a mother colony for a continuous egg production and a male production colony for releases.However,the efficacy of such SIT programs depends on the ability of producing large numbers of both male and female pupae whilst reducing as much as possible the number tilting/sorting events.This implies the abolition/increase of protandry in the above-mentioned colonies.Pro-tandry,defined as the earlier emergence of males as compared to con-specific females,is a phenomenon which exists naturally in Aedes mosquitoes.To collect the maximum number of female pupae in the mother colony and the maximum number of male/female pupae in one tilt/separation event,we initiated a long-term laboratory experiment to investigate the possibility to select a strain toward absence of protandry/synchronization of pupation and increased sexual size dimorphism for improved sex-separation.The selection experiment was designed(under laboratory rearing)and is being carried out on the mother colony to suppress protandry with the ultimate goal to collect male and female pupae in both colonies at one tilt event while improving sex-separation.The experiment consists of crossing males and females from the same batch of pupae that emerged the same day,and progeny were reared under more relaxed conditions than that of the male production colonies.
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