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Life‐history responses of larviparous Boettcherisca formosensis (Diptera: Sarcophagidae) to larval competition for food, including comparisons with oviparous Hemipyrellia ligurriens (Calliphoridae)
Author(s) -
SO PINGMAN,
DUDGEON DAVID
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
ecological entomology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.865
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1365-2311
pISSN - 0307-6946
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2311.1989.tb00964.x
Subject(s) - biology , oviparity , larva , brood , fecundity , zoology , scramble competition , calliphoridae , offspring , ecology , competition (biology) , population , pregnancy , genetics , demography , sociology
. 1 The effect of larval rearing density on life‐history parameters of Boettcherisca formosensis Kirner & Lopes (Sarcophagidae) was investigated. Increases in rearing density resulted in lowered larval survivorship, shortened larval development time and production of smaller, shorter‐lived adults with reduced fecundity. 2. B. formosensis is larviparous. Average brood size was 17.5±1.0 (mean±M) larvae, which was much less than the average number of mature larvae inside gravid females. Females apparently produced a series of small broods, distributing their offspring over a number of carcasses. 3. Compared with the oviparous species Hemipyrellia ligurriens (Wiedemann) (Calliphoridae), B. formosensis adults were larger and longer‐lived, with a longer larval development time but shorter larval feeding period. However, females had a shorter pre‐reproductive period, were less fecund, and had a lower life time reproductive investment. 4. B. formosensis had lower relative performance (measured by the composite index of performance, r') than H. ligurriens over the larval rearing density range, and was more sensitive to increases in density. Although the r' values suggest that the sarcophagid may be a competitively inferior species, other features which are not included in the index (such as larvipary, short larval feeding period and spreading of offspring from a single brood among carcasses) may be of significant adaptive value to B. formosensis.