Forty generations of inbreeding of Glossina morsitans morsitans Westwood (Diptera: Glossinidae)

Abstract

AbstractA single male and female were removed from a well-established laboratory colony of Glossina morsitans morsitans Westw. and became the parents of an inbred stock. In general, each subsequent generation comprised ten randomly selected females mated to one of three randomly selected males, both sexes being offspring of the preceding generation. The inbred stock was fed on the ears of rabbits for 40 generations, over a period of almost eight years. Performance, in terms of length of female life, female fecundity, number and weight of puparia produced, effective emergence rate from puparia and sex ratio of emerged flies showed little variation between generations. By generation 40, the inbreeding coefficient was 0·9347; over the same eight years, the inbreeding coefficient of the parent colony of G. m. morsitans was less than 0·0303. It is concluded that the risks of inbreeding having deleterious effects on laboratory colonies of Glossina are slight.