Insects represent the most abundant and speciose group of animals on this planet having established diverse and rather complex interactions with many prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms. Although the interactions of insects with plants and vertebrates have been extensively studied, their interactions with microorganisms, despite their major significance from the ecological and evolutionary point of view, are still poorly characterized. However, the importance of the microorganisms on insects’ biology and physiology is gradually being unravelled.

True fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) are no exception, as they have established sophisticated interactions with microorganisms. There are over 5000 species in this family, many of which are destructive pests of fruits and vegetables. Beyond the direct damage caused by flies ovipositing in ripening fruit, some species are highly invasive, and incur major trade problems across and within national and international borders. These result in strict and costly quarantine regulations. The use of insecticides to control these pests, while effective on the short term, is associated with major environmental and health concerns. Accordingly, The Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) is deployed against several fruit fly species. This is an environment-friendly, species-specific and environment-friendly technology which can be used as an additional tool in integrated pest management programmes. As the efficiency of SIT may be hampered by quality control and cost effectiveness, major research efforts have focussed on ways to improve this process. These focus on the quality of the insects reared for release and the reduction of operational costs. The symbiotic relationships of tephritids were recognized as potential targets for improving sterile fly quality and reducing costs of production, and the papers in this collection describe this research effort.

Coordinated Research Projects are a very powerful mechanism to bring together scientists in an attempt to fill knowledge gaps and solve important problems IAEA Member States may be facing. Eight years ago, a coordinated research project (CRP) entitled “Use of Symbiotic Bacteria to Reduce Mass-Rearing Costs and Increase Mating Success in Selected Fruit Pests in Support of SIT Application” was implemented by the Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture. Carlos Cáceres of the FAO/IAEA was the coordinator of this initiative which attracted the participation of 21 scientists from 16 countries, originating from diverse scientific fields, with the common goal of disentangling the symbiotic associations between the fruit flies and various microorganisms.

The CRP focused on four key areas of research that could improve the quality management of fruit flies for use in SIT programmes: (1) eliminating the use of expensive ingredients in the larval diet (e.g. brewers / torula yeasts) and chemicals which are used to restrict the presence of unwanted microorganisms thus improving the productivity and quality of mass-reared insect colonies, (2) the use of radiation may disrupt the symbiotic community of mass-reared flies by enabling the presence of some bacterial species while limiting others. Determining the impact of radiation on the symbiotic communities will ultimately result to the development of responses to mitigate these effects in a manner that optimizes SIT efficiency; (3) restoring the symbiotic bacterial community in sterile fruit fly males, before their release, can greatly enhance their mating performance, and (4) it is known that several symbiotic bacteria, such as Wolbachia, are able to manipulate mating behaviour of their hosts and/or to induce reproductive alterations which can be exploited for the population control of insect pests and disease vectors. For example, the incompatible insect technique (IIT) is based on the Wolbachia-induced phenomenon of cytoplasmic incompatibility, which can be used for the population suppression of a target pest by repeated releases of cytoplasmically incompatible males. In some specific cases, SIT and IIT can be used in combination as complementary control tools.

In this CRP, we seek to extend these approaches to manipulating the diverse microbiota present in SIT targeted insect pests associated to protect fruit and vegetable crops. In addition, four meetings were organized at about 18-month intervals during which the participating scientists reported their findings, exchanged ideas and coordinated their research plans. This special issue comprises the final research results of the CRP (18 research papers) that summarize the outcomes of the research carried out by participants and collaborators during the CRP.

The guest editors are confident that this Cross-Journal Supplement on BMC Microbiology and BMC Biotechnology will provide valuable information regarding the manipulation of insect microbiota in support of sterile insect technique applications against insect fruit pests.

Not applicable.

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About this supplement

This article has been published as part of BMC Microbiology Volume 19 Supplement 1, 2019: Proceedings of an FAO/IAEA Coordinated Research Project on Use of Symbiotic Bacteria to Reduce Mass-rearing Costs and Increase Mating Success in Selected Fruit Pests in Support of SIT Application: microbiology. The full contents of the supplement are available online at https://bmcmicrobiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/supplements/volume-19-supplement-1.

Funding

This work was funded by the Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, IAEA (CRP No.: D4. 10.24) Vienna, Austria.

Affiliations

1. Insect Pest Control Laboratory, Joint FAO/IAEA Programme of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, A-1400, Vienna, Austria
   • Carlos Cáceres
   •  & Kostas Bourtzis
2. Department of Environmental Engineering, University of Patras, 2 Seferi St., 30131, Agrinio, Greece
   • George Tsiamis
3. Departments of Entomology and Plant Pathology & Microbiology, Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, POB 12, 76100, Rehovot, Israel
   • Boaz Yuval
   •  & Edouard Jurkevitch

Authors

1. Search for Carlos Cáceres in:
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2. Search for George Tsiamis in:
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3. Search for Boaz Yuval in:
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4. Search for Edouard Jurkevitch in:
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5. Search for Kostas Bourtzis in:
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Contributions

CC, GT, BY, EJ and KB. drafted the manuscript and all authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Carlos Cáceres.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Cáceres, C., Tsiamis, G., Yuval, B. et al. Joint FAO/IAEA coordinated research project on “use of symbiotic bacteria to reduce mass-rearing costs and increase mating success in selected fruit pests in support of SIT application”. BMC Microbiol 19, 284 (2019) doi:10.1186/s12866-019-1644-y

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• Published

  24 December 2019

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.1186/s12866-019-1644-y

中文翻译：

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粮农组织/国际原子能机构联合协调研究项目，涉及“利用共生细菌减少大规模繁殖的成本并提高某些果蝇害虫的交配成功率，以支持昆虫不育技术的应用”。

昆虫代表了地球上最丰富，最特殊的动物群，它们与许多原核生物和真核生物之间建立了多样且相当复杂的相互作用。尽管已经广泛研究了昆虫与植物和脊椎动物的相互作用，但是，尽管从生态学和进化的观点来看它们与微生物的相互作用具有重要意义，但它们与微生物的相互作用仍然没有被很好地描述。然而，微生物对昆虫生物学和生理学的重要性正在逐渐被阐明。

真果蝇（双翅目：蝇科）也不例外，因为它们与微生物建立了复杂的相互作用。这个家庭有超过5000种，其中许多是水果和蔬菜的破坏性害虫。除果蝇在成熟果实中产卵而造成的直接损害外，某些物种还具有高度入侵性，并在国家和国际边界之内和之内引起重大贸易问题。这些导致严格而昂贵的隔离规定。使用杀虫剂控制这些害虫虽然在短期内有效，但与主要的环境和健康问题有关。因此，针对几种果蝇部署了不育昆虫技术（SIT）。这是环保的，特定于物种的环境友好型技术，可以用作有害生物综合治理计划中的附加工具。由于质量控制和成本效益可能会阻碍SIT的效率，因此主要的研究工作集中在改进此过程的方法上。这些重点放在饲养释放的昆虫的质量和降低运营成本上。酪胺类的共生关系被认为是改善不育蝇质量和降低生产成本的潜在目标，该文献中的论文描述了这项研究工作。这些重点放在饲养释放的昆虫的质量和降低运营成本上。酪胺类的共生关系被认为是改善不育蝇质量和降低生产成本的潜在目标，该文献中的论文描述了这项研究工作。这些重点放在饲养释放的昆虫的质量和降低运营成本上。酪胺类的共生关系被认为是改善不育蝇质量和降低生产成本的潜在目标，该文献中的论文描述了这项研究工作。

协调研究项目是一个强大的机制，可以使科学家聚集在一起，以填补知识空白并解决国际原子能机构成员国可能面临的重要问题。八年前，粮农组织/国际原子能机构联合核技术司实施了一项协调研究项目（CRP），题为“使用共生细菌降低大规模繁殖成本并提高某些害虫的交配成功率，以支持昆虫不育技术的应用”。粮食和农业。粮农组织/国际原子能机构的卡洛斯·卡塞雷斯（CarlosCáceres）是该计划的协调员，该计划吸引了来自16个国家的21位科学家，他们来自不同的科学领域，其共同目标是消除果蝇与各种微生物之间的共生关系。

CRP专注于四个关键领域的研究，这些领域可以改善用于SIT计划的果蝇的质量管理：（1）避免在幼虫饮食中使用昂贵的成分（例如啤酒/酵母菌）和用于限制有害微生物的存在，从而提高大规模繁殖的昆虫群落的生产力和质量。（2）辐射的使用可能通过允许某些细菌物种的存在而限制其他细菌的存在，从而破坏大规模繁殖蝇类的共生群落。确定辐射对共生群落的影响最终将导致以最优化昆虫不育技术效率的方式缓解这些影响的反应的发展；（3）在释放不育果蝇的雄性中恢复其共生细菌群落，Wolbachia能够操纵其宿主的交配行为和/或诱导繁殖变化，这些变化可用于控制害虫和病媒。例如，不相容昆虫技术（IIT）基于沃尔巴克菌病引起的细胞质不相容现象，该现象可用于通过反复释放细胞质不相容雄性来抑制目标害虫。在某些特定情况下，SIT和IIT可以结合使用作为补充控制工具。

在此CRP中，我们寻求扩展这些方法，以操纵针对保护水果和蔬菜作物的以SIT为目标的害虫中存在的各种微生物群。此外，大约每隔18个月组织了四次会议，与会的科学家报告了他们的发现，交换了意见并协调了他们的研究计划。本期特刊包含了CRP的最终研究结果（18篇研究论文），总结了参与者和合作者在CRP期间进行的研究成果。

客座编辑充满信心，该BMC微生物学和BMC生物技术交叉期刊增刊将提供有关操纵昆虫微生物群以支持针对昆虫果害的无菌昆虫技术应用的有价值的信息。

不适用。

不适用。

关于此补品

本文已作为BMC微生物学第19卷增刊1 2019年的一部分发表：粮农组织/国际原子能机构关于使用共生细菌降低成批增加成本并提高某些害虫在支持昆虫不育技术应用中的交配成功的协调研究项目的议事录： 微生物学。该补充剂的全部内容可在https://bmcmicrobiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/supplements/volume-19-supplement-1上在线获得。

资金

这项工作由原子能机构粮农组织/国际原子能机构粮食和农业核技术联合司（CRP号：D4.10.24）奥地利维也纳资助。

隶属关系

1. 粮农组织/国际原子能机构粮食和农业核技术联合计划害虫防治实验室，A-1400，奥地利维也纳
   • 卡洛斯·卡塞雷斯（CarlosCáceres）
   •  和Kostas Bourtzis
2. 帕特雷大学环境工程系，希腊阿格里尼奥塞菲里街2号，邮编30131
   • 乔治·塞米斯
3. 耶路撒冷希伯来大学农业，食品与环境学院昆虫学，植物病理学与微生物学系，POB 12，76100，以色列雷霍沃特
   • 波阿斯·尤瓦尔（Boaz Yuval）
   •  ＆爱德华·尤尔科维奇（Edouard Jurkevitch）

作者

1. 在以下位置搜索CarlosCáceres：
   • 考研•
   • 谷歌学术
2. 在以下位置搜索George Tsiamis：
   • 考研•
   • 谷歌学术
3. 在以下位置搜索Boaz Yuval：
   • 考研•
   • 谷歌学术
4. 在以下位置搜索Edouard Jurkevitch：
   • 考研•
   • 谷歌学术
5. 在以下位置搜索Kostas Bourtzis：
   • 考研•
   • 谷歌学术

会费

CC，GT，BY，EJ和KB。起草了手稿，所有作者都阅读并批准了最终手稿。

通讯作者

对应于卡洛斯·卡塞雷斯。

道德规范的批准和参与同意

不适用。

同意发表

不适用。

利益争夺

作者宣称他们没有竞争利益。

发行人的便条

对于已发布地图和机构隶属关系中的管辖权主张，Springer Nature保持中立。

开放访问这是根据知识共享署名IGO许可（https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/）的条款分发的开放访问文章，该条款允许在任何介质中无限制地使用，分发和复制，并注明出处为原始作者，并提供了出处。

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引用本文

Cáceres，C.，Tsiamis，G.，Yuval，B。等。粮农组织/国际原子能机构联合协调研究项目，“使用共生细菌减少大规模繁殖的成本并提高某些水果害虫的交配成功率，以支持昆虫不育技术的应用”。BMC微生物学 19， 284（2019）DOI：10.1186 / s12866-019-1644-Y

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