Fig. 3: HC mosquito transportation, release route, release number, and mating competitiveness.

a Transportation of HC mosquitoes from the mosquito factory to the release site. b The route for release in the field. The small yellow dots indicate the start and end of release route. The concentric circles present the release spots on the release route. c The number of HC males released weekly and the survival rate of HC males at the time of release. The survival rate (red line) is expressed as the proportion of HC males surviving at the release time among the total individuals in the release containers. d The ratios of HC males to wild-type males of A. albopictus at the release site, calculated using the total number of HC (Release, blue line) and wild male (Wide, yellow line) mosquitos collected from all the BG traps per 24 h in the release site, based on assay of Wolbachia wPip infection via qPCR. The red dashed line represents the target ratio of 5:1 to reach effective suppression based on previous studies¹¹. e HC male mating competitiveness. The median of weekly CIS indexes in each release phase are shown as the horizontal line with error bar of 95% confidence interval of weekly CIS indexes. Each weekly CIS index value is shown as a red circle. Two-sided Mann–Whitney test, Phase-I: release site: n = 5, control site: n = 5, P = 0.1734; Phase-II: release site: n = 8, release site: n = 8, P = 0.0062**.