Oviposition behavior of the blowfly Chrysomya megacephala (Fabricius) in substrate with previous oviposition of Chrysomya albiceps (Wiedemann) under laboratory conditions

• Grant number: 23/07139-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: September 01, 2023
• End date: August 31, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Ecology - Applied Ecology
• Principal Investigator: Claudio José von Zuben
• Grantee: Gustavo Henrique de Moraes Vazquez
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biociências (IB). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Rio Claro. Rio Claro , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Blowflies are commonly the first arthropods to colonize decaying corpses, thus being important agents in the forensic entomology field. Previous studies demonstrated that some blowfly species have preferences about the site where they will lay their eggs, doing this choice based on visual and olfactive cues, mainly. The larvae of the Chrysomya albiceps species, in a saturated substrate with little food availability, may have facultative predatory or cannibal habits; so, those larvae act like repellent agents to gravid females of another species of blowflies, such as Chrysomya megacephala species. However, there isn't a consensus about the effect that the eggs of C. albiceps species have on gravid females of C. megacephala during the process of choosing the oviposition site. Besides, there is no consensus either about the oviposition under absence of light, and about the influence of the visual and olfactive cues individually on the process of choosing oviposition substrate. In this way, the present study will seek to evaluate initially, under laboratory conditions, the effect of the C. albiceps eggs on the oviposition site selection process by gravid females of C. megacephala species, in addition to seek to clarify initially the presence or absence of oviposition in an environment without luminosity and if only the olfaction of gravid femlaes of C. megacephala species is sufficient to make a choice of adequate oviposition substrate.