title: Female sensitivity to diet and irradiation treatments underlies sex-mortality differentials in the Mediterranean fruit fly.
abstract: Large-scale experiments on medflies that were subjected to sterilizing doses of ionizing radiation (plus intact controls) and maintained on either sugar-only or full, protein-enriched diets revealed that, whereas the mortality trajectories of both intact and irradiated male cohorts maintained on both diets are similar, the mortality patterns of females are highly variable. Mean mortality rates at 35 days in male cohorts ranged from 0.2 to 0.3 but in female cohorts ranged from 0.09 to 0.35, depending on treatment. The study reports three main influences: (a) qualitative differences exist in the sex-mortality response of medflies subjected to dietary manipulations and irradiation; (b) the female mortality response is linked to increased vulnerability due to the nutritional demands of reproduction; and (c) female sensitivity to environmental changes underlies the dynamics of the sex-mortality differential.
authors.affiliation: Department of Entomology, University of California, Davis 95616, USA. jrcarey@ucdavis.edu
authors.forename: J R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Carey
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Liedo
authors.forename: H G
authors.initials: HG
authors.lastname: Müller
authors.forename: J L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Love
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Harshman
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Partridge
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002241:Carbohydrates / Q000494:pharmacology; D004032:Diet; D004044:Dietary Proteins / Q000494:pharmacology; D004175:Diptera / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology* / Q000528:radiation effects*; D005260:Female; D008017:Life Expectancy; D008297:Male; D009026:Mortality; D012098:Reproduction / Q000502:physiology; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D017678:Sex Distribution
chemical_list: D002241:Carbohydrates; D004044:Dietary Proteins