Effects of Larval Population Density and Food Type on the Life Cycle ofMusca domestica(Diptera: Muscidae)

Abstract

Larval density is an important factor modulating larval resource-acquisition, influencing development of insects. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of larval density and substrate content on some life-history parameters of Musca domestica Linnaeus, 1758 (Diptera: Muscidae). This research was carried out from March 2019 through September 2019 at Animal Physiology Laboratory of Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun, Turkey. Groups of 25, 100, 200, and 400 newly hatched M. domestica larvae were transferred to a polyethylene cup filled with different substrates (i.e., wheat bran, poultry meal, soybean meal) and kept at 25°C, 62% RH with a photoperiod of 12:12 (L:D) h. A two-way analysis of variance (Two way ANOVA) was used to analyze the data on the percentage of pupal and larval survival development time, pupal, and adult weight to evaluate the effect of density and rearing substrate. In this study, increasing larval density and nutrient content of food led to changes in the larval and pupal development time of M. domestica. The results also indicated that the weight of pupae and adult survival was negatively affected by increasing larval density. The wheat bran diet was superior to the other diets for all parameters tested. Our study indicated that life history parameters of Musca domestica are affected by the rearing conditions.

Asymptotic estimated digestibility, a new indicator of black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) conversion efficiency in relation to larval density

“…Dead BSFL could not be visually detected after seven days of feeding and were presumably consumed by other larvae or decomposed into the substrate. Similar adverse effects of density on survival or growth have been reported in other insect species such as Drosophila melanogaster (Henry et al, 2020), Musca domestica (Kökdener and Kiper, 2020) or Tenebrio molitor (Deruytter and Coudron, 2022). Impaired larval DM content observed in the present work at high density suggests that limited access to feed caused BSFL to use their body energy resources by oxidising their fat reserve (Opare et al, 2022).…”

Estimation of genetic parameters for the implementation of selective breeding in commercial insect production

“…However, it may be related to the fact that individual larvae or flies cannot be tracked in a larger rearing system over time, as we had to isolate full-sib families, and thus smaller containers were required to keep track of pedigree information. Unfavourable conditions caused by such downscaling, such as drying and encrusting of the rearing substrate [ 45 ], low temperature [ 59 ], accumulation of ammonia in the small vials [ 60 ], reduced microbial activity [ 61 ] or insufficient processing of the substrate through ‘social digestion’ [ 62 ] could cause retarded growth and reduced survival in dipterans. The average development time is observed to be longer in our study compared to other findings in the literature [ 45 , 58 , 60 ], which is an indicator of suboptimal rearing conditions.…”

Control study of Musca domestica (Diptera, Muscidae) in Misan Province

“…[43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50] Many authors have stated that M. domestica has the highest population among flies and is widely found in residential environments, food sources, dirty cooling places, and landfills near human activities. 41,51,52 Musca's larval life history parameters are affected by the prey quantities, types of foods, and densities of rearing of housefly.…”

“…In HI, if percentage ≥5%, this represents a high risk of transmission while that <5% consider low risk for HI. 27 The density of the larval index description is a combination of HI, CI, and BI and is rated on a scale of 1-9, as shown in Table 1, according to the Queensland Government. 28 The indices scoring is subdivided into three groups: LD = 1 for low, LD = 2-5 for medium, and LD = 6-9 for high (Table 1).…”