ABSTRACT
The Sterile Insect Technique is an environmentally friendly method for the control of pest insects. It has been applied successfully on numerous occasions, and the number of ongoing or planned programmes is increasing. For the Mediterranean fruit fly, twelve mass-rearing factories are in operation worldwide. The chapter describes the construction of a sexing strain, VIENNA-42, utilising a temperature sensitive lethal mutation which allows for the elimination of the females at the egg stage. By comparing and evaluating the existing selectable markers, it became apparent that none of them was suitable for a largescale mass production facility. The wild-type allele of the respective selectable marker is linked to the male sex via a Y-autosome translocation. In Mediterranean fruit fly, the Y chromosome contains a dominant male determination factor. Non-disjunction of X and Y chromosome has been reported. Genetic sexing systems have reached a level of accuracy, stability and applicability that make large scale mass-rearing of the sexing strains possible.
