Thermal requirements of two species of Chrysomya (Diptera: Calliphoridae) reared under different temperatures and food substrates

• Grant number: 14/08603-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: August 01, 2014
• End date: July 31, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Parasitology - Entomology and Malacology of Parasites and Vectors
• Agreement: Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES)
• Principal Investigator: Arício Xavier Linhares
• Grantee: Fabio Rezende
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biologia (IB). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Insects and other arthropods, when associated with decomposing bodies, can assist the progress or completion of an investigative process. The main applications within the forensic sciences concern the estimation of postmortem interval (PMI), infer whether there was movement of the body and to investigate possible cause of death in the latter case, particularly on situations where the victim made use of toxic substances. Factors such as temperature, relative humidity, variation in photoperiod, type of food substrate, among others, may alter the rate of development of insects, thus causing errors in the calculation of PMI. A vast number of studies that focus on the development of insects subjected to different temperatures or created in various types of substrates can be found in the literature, yet many do not make use of these two factors combined. This study aims to evaluate the rates of immature development of two species of Chrysomya under the effect of two variables simultaneously: different food resources (tissue from brain, lung, muscle, heart, liver and intestine of domestic pig - Sus scrofa L.) and thermal strips (5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 and 35 °C) to determine the thermal time constant and the threshold of development of each species. Colonies of adult Chrysomya albiceps (Wiedemann) and C. megacephala (Fabricius) will be established from field collections and all the immature development will be accompanied in the laboratory. Biological parameters such as weight and length will be evaluated every 12 hours from hatching to the pupariation. The results will be used to develop models of development fees (accumulated growing degree hours and regression), which will serve as a basis for estimating the IPM with higher accuracy. (AU)

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

REZENDE, Fabio. Thermal requirements of immatures of two species of Chrysomya (Diptera: Calliphoridae) created under different temperatures and food substrates. 2018. Doctoral Thesis - Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Biologia Campinas, SP.