The Wolbachia incompatible insect technique (IIT) shows promise as a method for eliminating populations of invasive mosquitoes such as Aedes aegypti (Linnaeus) (Diptera: Culicidae) and reducing the incidence of vector-borne diseases such as dengue, chikungunya and Zika. Successful implementation of this biological control strategy relies on high-fidelity separation of male from female insects in mass production systems for inundative release into landscapes. Processes for sex-separating mosquitoes are typically error-prone and laborious, and IIT programmes run the risk of releasing Wolbachia-infected females and replacing wild mosquito populations. We introduce a simple Markov population process model for studying mosquito populations subjected to a Wolbachia-IIT programme which exhibit an unstable equilibrium threshold. The model is used to study, in silico, scenarios that are likely to yield a successful elimination result. Our results suggest that elimination is best achieved by releasing males at rates that adapt to the ever-decreasing wild population, thus reducing the risk of releasing Wolbachia-infected females while reducing costs. While very high-fidelity sex separation is required to avoid establishment, release programmes tend to be robust to the release of a small number of Wolbachia-infected females. These findings will inform and enhance the next generation of Wolbachia-IIT population control strategies that are already showing great promise in field trials.

中文翻译：

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沃尔巴克氏体不相容昆虫技术建模：有效消灭蚊子种群的策略

沃尔巴克氏体不相容昆虫技术 (IIT) 作为消除埃及伊蚊（林奈）（双翅目：蚊科）等入侵性蚊子种群并减少登革热、基孔肯雅热和寨卡病等媒介传播疾病发病率的方法有望成为一种方法。这种生物控制策略的成功实施依赖于大规模生产系统中雄虫与雌虫的高保真分离，并大量释放到景观中。蚊子的性别分离过程通常容易出错且费力，IIT 项目面临着释放感染沃尔巴克氏体的雌性蚊子并取代野生蚊子种群的风险。我们引入了一个简单的马尔可夫种群过程模型，用于研究受 Wolbachia-IIT 程序影响的蚊子种群，该程序表现出不稳定的平衡阈值。该模型用于通过计算机模拟研究可能产生成功消除结果的场景。我们的结果表明，消除的最好方法是按照野生种群不断减少的速度释放雄性，从而降低释放感染沃尔巴克氏体的雌性的风险，同时降低成本。虽然需要非常高保真度的性别分离以避免建立，但释放计划往往对释放少数感染沃尔巴克氏体的雌性很有效。这些发现将为下一代 Wolbachia-IIT 种群控制策略提供信息并增强这些策略，这些策略已经在现场试验中显示出巨大的前景。