Genetics and realized heritability of resistance to imidacloprid in a poultry population of house fly, Musca domestica L. (Diptera: Muscidae) from Pakistan

• After 13 generations of selection, a strain of M. domestica developed 106-fold resistance to imidacloprid.
• Reciprocal crosses of susceptible and Imida-SEL strains showed an autosomal trait of resistance to imidacloprid.
• The incompletely recessive and polygenic resistance was found in Imida-SEL strain of M. domestica.
• The realized heritability value was 0.09 in Imida-SEL strain of M. domestica.

Imidacloprid, a post-synaptic, nicotinic insecticide, has been commonly used for the management of different pests including Musca domestica worldwide. Many pests have developed resistance to this insecticide. A 16-fold imidacloprid-resistant population of M. domestica infesting poultry was selected using imidacloprid for 13 continuous generations to study the inheritance and realized heritability of resistance. Toxicological bioassay at G14 showed that the imidacloprid-selected population developed 106-fold resistance when compared to the susceptible population. Reciprocal crosses of susceptible and resistant populations showed an autosomal trait of resistance to imidacloprid in M. domestica. There was incompletely recessive resistance in F1 (Imida-SEL ♂ × Susceptible ♀) and F1† (Imida-SEL ♀ × Susceptible ♂) having dominance value 0.53 and 0.31, respectively. Monogenic model of inheritance showed that imidacloprid resistance was controlled by multiple factors. The realized heritability value was 0.09 in the imidacloprid-selected population of M. domestica. It was concluded that imidacloprid resistance in M. domestica was autosomally inherited, incompletely recessive and polygenic. These findings should be helpful for better and more successful management of M. domestica.

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