SIT-ia: A Software-Hardware System to Improve Male Sorting Efficacy for the Sterile Insect Technique

Enregistré dans:
Détails bibliographiques
Publié dans:Insects vol. 16, no. 11 (2025), p. 1108-1121
Auteur principal: de la Vega Gerardo
Autres auteurs: Smith, Luciano, Soria-Mercier Lihuen, Edwards, Wilson, Triñanes Federico, Masagué Santiago, Corley, Juan
Publié:
MDPI AG
Sujets:
Accès en ligne:Citation/Abstract
Full Text + Graphics
Full Text - PDF
Tags: Ajouter un tag
Pas de tags, Soyez le premier à ajouter un tag!
Description
Résumé:Invasive insects can cause significant economic impacts to agriculture worldwide and impact human health. Traditional pest management methods that include chemical insecticides have raised increasing environmental and health concerns, prompting the need for sustainable alternatives. The Sterile Insect Technique (SIT), which consists of releasing sterile males of a target pest to mate with wild females, is held as a promising solution. However, the success of SIT relies on the release of sterile males. The efficient separation of sexes prior to sterilization and release is necessary. This study presents SIT-ia, a software–hardware system that utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) and computer vision to automate the sex-sorting process. We showcase its use with the fruit fly pest D. suzukii. The system was able to identify males from females with a 98.6% accuracy, sorting 1000 sterile flies in ~70 min, which is nearly half the time involved in manual sorting by experts (i.e., ~112 min). This simple device can easily be adopted in SIT production protocols, improving the feasibility and efficacy of improved pest management practices.
ISSN:2075-4450
DOI:10.3390/insects16111108
Source:Agriculture Science Database