Radical new “Trojan Female” pest control approach shows great promise

30 October 2013

Radical new Trojan Female pest control approach shows great promise

An innovative, non-lethal approach to pest management has the potential to become a game-changer in providing lasting and effective control in a wide range of insect and animal pests, according to New Zealand scientists developing the technique.

Researchers from the University of Otago, the University of Western Australia, the Ministry for Primary Industries, and Landcare Research today published findings about their proposed Trojan Female Technique (TFT) in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

The technique harnesses naturally occurring mutations in the maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) that reduce male fertility while having little or no reproductive or other fitness impacts on females.

This means that Trojan Females (TFs) and their female descendants carrying such mutations could potentially produce sterile males over multiple generations, leading to dramatic and lasting population declines.

Using mathematical models the researchers show how introducing TFs into pest populations, as either single large releases or relatively few small repeat releases, could be effective in providing population control within relatively few generations.

Study lead author Professor Neil Gemmell of the University of Otagos Department of Anatomy described the findings as a key advance towards better protecting agriculture, human health and biodiversity from pests that cause or carry disease, or damage or consume valued resources.

This could be a game-changer in reducing the global impact of pests. Conventional approaches to pest management usually involve lethal control, but such approaches are costly, of varying efficiency, and often have ethical issues.

Although the greatest effectiveness was predicted for high turnover species such as insects and rodents, the cumulative nature of multiple releases makes the TFT applicable across the broad range of animal pests, he says.

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Radical new “Trojan Female” pest control approach shows great promise