Population-specific demography and invasion potential in medfly

Abstract

Biological invasions are constantly gaining recognition as a significant component of global change. The Mediterranean fruit fly (medfly) constitutes an ideal model species for the study of biological invasions due to its (1) almost cosmopolitan geographic distribution, (2) huge economic importance, and (3) well-documented invasion history. Under a common garden experimental set up, we tested the hypothesis that medfly populations obtained from six global regions [Africa (Kenya), Pacific (Hawaii), Central America (Guatemala), South America (Brazil), Extra-Mediterranean (Portugal), and Mediterranean (Greece)] have diverged in important immature life-history traits such as preadult survival and developmental times. We also tested the hypothesis that medfly populations from the above regions exhibit different population growth rates. For this purpose, data on the life history of immatures were combined with adult survival and reproduction data derived from an earlier study in order to calculate population parameters for the above six populations. Our results clearly show that medfly populations worldwide exhibit significant differences in preadult survival, developmental rates of immatures and important population parameters such as the intrinsic rate of increase. Therefore, geographically isolated medfly populations may share different invasion potential, since population growth rates could influence basic population processes that operate mostly during the last two stages of an invasion event, such as establishment and spread. Our findings provide valuable information for designing population suppression measures and managing invasiveness of medfly populations worldwide.