Allee effect in exotic and introduced blowflies

26Necrophagous flies breeding on carcasses face high selection pressures and therefore 27 provide interesting opportunities to study social adaptations. We postulated that blowfly 28 necrophagous larvae gregariousness is an adaptive response to the environmental 29 constraints of fresh carcasses. Cooperation is indeed believed to be a key to the global 30 success of social species. To test this idea, the development of Lucilia sericata 31 (Diptera: Calliphoridae) larvae growing on low-or high-digestibility food substrate 32 (control or trypsin-added ground beef muscle, respectively) at different larval densities 33 was monitored. Results showed that larvae developed faster and had decreased 34 mortality at high larval density compared with low larval density. Furthermore, 35aggregation had no deleterious effect on the morphological characteristics (e.g., size) 36of post-feeding larvae and flies. We concluded that increased density positively 37 affected population fitness, which is a conclusion consistent with the predictions of the 38 Allee effect. Compared with regular food, larvae fed on high-digestibility food had 39 reduced mortality and faster development on average. According to these results, we 40 postulated that collective exodigestion might be an adaptive response allowing 41 blowflies to colonise fresh carcasses before the arrival of other insects and the 42 multiplication of microbes. This hypothesis is consistent with the idea that cooperation 43 may enable species to expand their niches. 44 45

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Allee effect in exotic and introduced blowflies

Cited by 5 publications

References 55 publications

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Introducing Different Modelling Scenarios to Entomologists

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Collective exodigestion favours blow fly colonization and development on fresh carcasses

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