Study of the life-history traits of the four melanic morphs ofBactrocera dorsalis
Newly emerged individuals of each melanic morph of B. dorsaliswere separated from the general population rearing cages and placed into
two smaller cages (15×15×20 cm) for easier sorting. A couple of each
morph (1 female: 1 male) was placed in separate cages (15×15×20 cm).
Pieces of mango dome (with curved out exocarp) were placed in each of
the 4 cages (this was done on the 10th day from the date of emergence).
After 24 h , the mango domes were retrieved from the cages and from each
separate dome at least 10 eggs from females of each morph were picked
and inoculated in an artificial liquid diet. On the fifth day (from the
day when eggs were inoculated), 30 larvae were individually weighed
using the Sartorius MC-1 AC210S Analytical (made in Germany; 0.0001 g
precision) weighing scale. Also, soon after these larvae pupated, the
pupation time was recorded and each pupa was weighed. In each morph, the
time (days) taken by adult flies to emerge from the pupae was also
recorded. The experiment was done in three replicates of 10 each. To see
whether all the life-history traits recorded varied across the different
morphs, we performed the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) followed by the
Student-Newman-Keuls (SNK) posthoc tests using the R package called
“agricolae” (de Mendiburu, 2021). All statistical comparisons were
considered significant when P < 0.05.