On the possibility of a new method for the control of insect pests.

A. S. Serebrovskii,  Zoologicheskiĭ zhurnal,  19:618-630 (in Russian). 1940.

English translation (1969). In: Sterile insect technique for eradication or control of harmful insects. IAEA, Vienna, 123-137. Panel Proceedings Series no. STI/PUB/224.

ON THE POSSIBILITY OF A NEW METHOD FOR THE CONTROL OF INSECT PESTS. The new principle of insect control consists in disturbing the propagation of the pest population by means of translocations. It is well known that individuals heterozygous for some translocations usually form a portion of aneuploid gametes and give a more or less inviable aneuploid progeny. On releasing, therefore, a sufficient number of individuals with a chromosome set altered by. translocations into a wild population (with allogamous propagation), there will arise heterozygotes for translocations yielding a certain percentage of inviable offspring. Crosses inside this population will be similar to those between species with resulting sterility of hybrids. The theoretical analysis reveals that if a wild population is mixed in proportion 1:1 with some race containing only one translocation viable in homozygous condition and giving in heterozygotes 50% of aneuploid gametes, the reproduction of the population will be reduced by 43%. If several races with different allelic translocations are released the reduction of reproduction in the population can reach 75%, and if races with 4-5 independent translocations are used the reduction can attain 95%-99% and even more. A population consisting of races with different translocations cannot remain in balance. Those types of chromosomes which happened to be in minority are subjected to elimination. Yet this process of elimination will go on during many generations and thus the disturbance of reproduction will be protracted. By an additional releasing of eliminating race, this disturbance can be maintained permanently. Diverse variants of this method are possible, depending upon the biology and economic importance of injurious insects, the cost of breeding translocated races in laboratories, the difficulties of obtaining viable translocations, etc. It is possible, for instance, to release only males, a method in which there is evidently no danger at all. The present investigation is a purely theoretical one. For the purpose of verifying experimentally this idea work has been started with Musca domestica and Calandra granaria – two insects widely differing in their cytogenetics, ecology and the kind of damage caused.