Polyandry: A threat or an opportunity for the sterile insect technique?
Fig 7
Dynamics of larval densities (A-B-C) and percentage reduction in areas under the curves (D-E-F) for different sperm bias and three sterilized male release rates : (A-D)
, (B-E)
, (C-F)
.
(A–B–C) Mean larval density over time across 100 simulations, with shaded areas representing standard deviation. The color code for sperm use scenarios is as follows: WR (black) represents the reference case Without Release (no sterilized males released), First (dark blue) corresponds to females using sperm from the first male they mated with, Last (orange) represents females using sperm from the last male they mated with, Mixed (pink) assumes a proportional use of fertile sperm linked to the proportion of eggs laid, and Preference reflects female preference for a specific sperm category, with three subcases: Preference W (gray) indicates total preference for fertile sperm, Preference I (light blue) indicates intermediate preference for fertile sperm, and Preference S (yellow) indicates total preference for sterilized sperm.
(D-E-F) Histograms showing the percentage reduction in areas under the curves for the sperm use scenarios described in A-B-C, relative to the reference scenario WR without release, over a 100-day period. The error bars in these graphs represents the 95% confidence interval (CI 95%). Simulations were conducted under the same initial conditions: 1000 wild males, 1000 females, and 0 larvae. Results are based on 100 simulations performed with the agent-based model described in Section 2.2.