ABSTRACT
The Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata is a very important economic pest and also an interesting model for population genetics. An interesting study on population structure of this pest has been made possible by the natural polymorphism found for the pupal esterase gene. Est-1 was the first isoenzymatic locus whose mode of inheritance could be demonstrated and mapped with respect to morphological markers. The fact that pupal esterase belongs to the nig linkage group was previously established. It was possible to map its position with respect to two loci expressed in the adult stage, but not at the pupal stage. The value of the design applied in the present work lies in the fact that it allows mapping genes of pre-adult expression, which requires the destruction of the individual, with respect to markers that can only be recorded in the adults.
