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Food conversion efficiency by fleshfly larvae, Sarcophaga bullata
Author(s) -
FRAENKEL GOTTFRIED
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
physiological entomology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.693
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1365-3032
pISSN - 0307-6962
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-3032.1981.tb00637.x
Subject(s) - biology , larva , botany , food science , zoology
. The efficiency of the conversion of the digested food (ECD) (liver) during the growing period of the larva of Sarcophaga bullata was determined. The values for ECD in four different determinations were 67.8, 69.1, 64.1 and 63.4%. These values are of the same order as ECD determined for some phytophagous caterpillars under the best conditions of food utilization, and seem to represent the highest values obtainable in a multicellular organism. It is concluded that such high efficiency rates have as prerequisites: fast growth in the larvae; and in the food, easy availability, ingestibility, and digestibility, high nutritional value, and reasonably high water content. Bacterial decomposition of the food during the test period appeared scarcely to influence the apparent ECD.