In order to enhance the mass production of the house fly, Musca domestica, five aspects of its oviposition biology were analyzed. Oviposition substrate and the manner of its presentation, the composition of the diet of the adults, size of the pupae and numbers of flies in a cage were identified as critical. Females preferred to lay eggs on a substrate which was presented within a shelter and with increased linear edges against which the flies could oviposit. Different types of oviposition substrate resulted in comparable yields of eggs. The presence of an oviposition attractant (ammonia) in the manure was found to have a potentially positive effect on female fecundity. Egg yield increased when two protein sources (yeast and milk) were included in the adult diet. However, flies fed a mixture of sugar and yeast laid over 50% fewer eggs than those fed the same proportion of sugar and milk. The fecundity of flies decreased with increase in the number of flies per cage, but the highest total number of eggs per cage was obtained when the flies were most crowded (14.2 cm3 per fly). The size of the pupae did not significantly affect egg production. and Berta Pastor, Helena Čičková, Milan Kozánek, Anabel Martínez-Sánchez, Peter Takáč, Santos Rojo.
A review of all known descriptions of immature stages of the species of the genera Scaeva Fabricius, 1805, Ischiodon Sack, 1913 and Simosyrphus Bigot, 1882 is presented using SEM illustrations. The third instar larval and/or pupal morphology of Scaeva dignota (Rondani, 1857), Scaeva mecogramma (Bigot, 1860) and Simosyrphus grandicornis (Macquart, 1842) are newly described. All species of the genera studied in this paper are very similar for all the studied characters of their immature stages, including the chaetotaxy. Molecular characters of the mitochondrial cox1 gene (1128bp) were used for inferring relationships of the studied taxa. The nuclear internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) was additionally applied for species delimitation of the closely related species Scaeva selenitica and S. dignota. The Palaearctic Scaeva species could be split into two groups based on the analysis of morphology of posterior respiratory process. These groups were previously diagnosed as S. selenitica-group [i.e., S. selenitica (Meigen, 1822), S. dignota (Rondani, 1857), S. mecogramma (Bigot, 1860)] and S. pyrastri-group [i.e., S. pyrastri (Linnaeus, 1758), S. albomaculata (Macquart, 1842), S. latimaculata (Brunetti, 1923)]. Semiscaeva Kuznetzov, 1985 and Scaeva Fabricius, 1805 are the available names for these two natural groups that should be classified as subgenera; the former name is proposed for S. selenitica-group and the latter for S. pyrastri-group. Mecoscaeva Kuznetzov, 1985 syn. n. is transferred as a junior synonym of the subgenus Semiscaeva Kuznetzov, 1985 according to the principle of the first reviser. Based on the analysis of immature stages, the generic name Ischiodon Sack, 1913 syn. n. is proposed as a junior synonym of the genus Simosyrphus Bigot, 1882. The similarity of immature stages between Scaeva s. str. and Simosyrphus grandicornis Macquart, 1842, Simosyrphus aegyptius (Wiedemann, 1830) comb. n. and Simosyrphus scutellaris (Fabricius, 1805) comb. n. is discussed. All the proposed subgeneric and generic taxa based on morphological studies received high support employing molecular characters.
The intra- and interspecific variability in the West Palaearctic tibialis-group species of the subgenus Pandasyopthalmus (Diptera: Syrphidae: Paragus) was analysed. Novel immature and molecular characters were studied and the traditionally used adult characters reviewed with the aim of establishing the status of the most widespread taxa of the tibialis-group in the Palaearctic region. Moreover, a review of the morphology of the larvae of the subgenus Pandasyopthalmus is also presented and includes the first description of the chaetotaxy of the larval head of Syrphidae. The larval morphology showed a continuum between two extremes. There is intraspecific variability in the male genitalia characters typically used for diagnostic species identification in this group. Molecular characters of the mitochondrial cytochrome c-oxidase subunit I (COI) was invariant for the West Palaearctic Pandasyopthalmus taxa analysed. Despite the fact that no great differences were found when compared with Afrotropical tibialis-group individuals (uncorrected pairwise divergence 0.17-0.35%), the divergences of the West Palaearctic vs. Nearctic and Austral-Oriental tibialis-group taxa varied between 1.15-2.75% (uncorrected pairwise divergence). Molecular characters of the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer region (ITS2) revealed several molecular haplotypes of a dinucleotide repeat that was not constrained to morphospecies or to populations of the same geographic origin. The closely related and morphologically similar species of the tibialis-group known from the West Palaearctic region are separable in most cases only by the shape and size of male postgonites. The results of this study support the presence of a single polymorphic taxon in the West Palaearctic region (or a very recent origin of the taxa studied). Moreover larval morphology and the lack of a clear relation between ITS2 haplotypes and the geographic distribution or adult morphology, support the taxonomic implications of barcode taxonomy based on mitochondrial DNA for this species-group of Syrphidae.
Larvae of Hermetia illucens feed on different types of decomposing organic matter and their development depends on the quality and quantity of food ingested. In this study the effect of three artificial diets was analyzed, namely hen feed, meat meal and a mixture of these two diets. The effects of diet on ovarian development, size, mortality, duration of the larval and pupal stages and sex ratio were studied. Results indicate that the meat meal diet was the worst of the three diets in terms of percentage mortality and duration of the larval and pupal stages. We conclude that food ingested by the black soldier fly larvae determines both the physiological and morphological development of the adults., Paola Gobbi, Anabel Martínez-Sánchez, Santos Rojo., and Obsahuje seznam literatury