The healthy maintenance of insects reared under laboratory conditions requires strategies to retain the natural characteristics of their lifehistories traits. Rearing strategies include artificial selection to laboratory conditions, hybridization with compatible strains, and supplying the colony with wild individuals. We compared behavioral as well as lifehistory aspects of two laboratory strains of Ceratitis capitata Wiedemann (Diptera, Tephritidae) that had either been reared for 1520 years under laboratory conditions with or without introducing wild specimens (LabPop and Hybridpop, respectively). The parameters evaluated were: performance and food ingestion of immatures, adult size and longevity, female oviposition preference and fecundity, egg viability, and mating choice. Analyses of these parameters were conducted under laboratory rearing conditions. The largest differences observed between the two strains were related to behavioral components: food ingestion rate at the larval stage and oviposition behavior. In general, LabPop individuals were less selective and more adapted to the artificial diet than HybridPop individuals (diet consumption), but there were no significant differences between the two strains in terms of percentage of emergence, egg viability, adult size, fecundity, and mating choice. It is suggested that the use of hybrid strains is more appropriate than the use of strains without the incorporation of wild individuals, especially in studies that involve behavioral parameters, as hybrid strains behave very similarly to wild populations, according our previous studies.
