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.