Pest control by the release of insects carrying a female-killing allele onmultiple loci

With recent advances in genetics, many new strategies for pest control have become feasible. This is the second article in which we model new techniqu es for pest control based on the mass release of genetically modified insec ts. In this article we model the release of insects carrying a dominant and redundant female killing or sterilizing (FK) allele on multiple genetic lo ci. If such insects are released into a target population, the FK allele ca n become widely spread in the population through the males while reducing t he population each generation by killing females. We allow the number of lo ci used to vary from 1 to 20. We also allow the FK allele to carry a fitnes s cost in males due to the gene insertions. Using a model, we explore the e ffectiveness and optimal strategies for such releases. En the mast ideal ci rcumstances (no density-dependence and released insects equal in fitness to wild ones), FR releases are several orders of magnitude more effective tha n equal sized sterile male releases. For example, a single release of 19 FK -bearing males for every two wild males, with the released males carrying t he FK allele on 10 loci, reduces the target population to 0.002% of no-rele ase size. An equal sized sterile release reduces the target population to 5 % of no-release size. We also show how the effectiveness of the technique d ecreases as the fitness cost of the FK alleles in males increases. For exam ple, the above mentioned release reduces the target population to 0.7% of n o-release size if each FK allele carries a fitness cost in males of 5%. rid ding a simple model for density-dependence and assuming that each of the re leased males carries the FK allele on six loci, we show that the release si ze necessary to reduce the target population to 1/100 of no-release size in 10 generations of releases varies from 0.44:1 to 4:1 (depending on paramet er values). We also calculate the optimal number of loci on which to put th e FK allele under various circumstances.