Rearing to maintain colony fitness, health and reproductive potential

Rearing is often considered a routine task and may not be given the attention required to ensure that the colony not only survives, but is well maintained, well fed and given the opportunity to produce generations of healthy, fecund individuals for release into the field. Poor hygiene, low quality food (host plant) and rearing under inappropriate environmental conditions all limit the general colony health. When colony health declines, numbers may fall so low that the genetic pool is restricted and progeny of the survivors may have lower genetic fitness. This could not prevent reproduction and survival but it may result in releases of individuals having less than optimum capacity to cope with the new environment, jeopardising the chances for establishment.

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