Abstract
Repeated use of the same class of pesticides to control a target pest is a form of artificial selection that leads to pesticide resistance. We studied insecticide resistance and cross-resistance to five commercial insecticides in each of six populations of the red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum. We estimated the dosage response curves for lethality in each parent population for each insecticide and found an 800-fold difference among populations in resistance to insecticides. As expected, a naïve laboratory population was among the most sensitive of populations to most insecticides. We then used inbred lines derived from five of these populations to estimate the heritability (h2) of resistance for each pesticide and the genetic correlation (rG) of resistance among pesticides in each population. These quantitative genetic parameters allow insight into the adaptive potential of populations to further evolve insecticide resistance. Lastly, we use our estimates of the genetic variance and covariance of resistance and stochastic simulations to evaluate the efficacy of “windowing” as an insecticide resistance management strategy, where the application of several insecticides is rotated on a periodic basis.
