Fig. 7
From: Targeting male mosquito mating behaviour for malaria control
The repeated release of mass-reared individuals with a narrower distribution of mating phenotype due to decreased genetic and/or phenotypic variance can drive the evolution of mating avoidance in target populations. In (a) the repeated mass releases (time t1, t2, t3) of sterile individuals whose narrower mating phenotype distribution only partially matches that of wild individuals imposes hard selection on the target population and drives the evolution of pre-mating isolation barriers. In (b) the gene drive mechanism implicit to most genetically-modified mosquito releases limits the opportunity for the evolution of mating avoidance in target populations resulting in successful target population transformation (change from black to white)