Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T01:45:54.081Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Natural variation in the growth and development of Protopiophila litigata (Diptera: Piophilidae) developing in three moose (Artiodactyla: Cervidae) antlers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2019

Christopher S. Angell*
Affiliation:
Department of Biology, University of Ottawa, 30 Marie-Curie Private, Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 6N5, Canada
Olivia Cook
Affiliation:
Department of Biology, University of Ottawa, 30 Marie-Curie Private, Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 6N5, Canada
*
1Corresponding author (e-mail: cange044@uottawa.ca)

Abstract

In animals, the early-life environment influences growth and development, which can have lasting effects on life history and fitness into adulthood. We investigated the patterns of growth, pupal development time, and their covariation in Protopiophila litigata Bonduriansky (Diptera: Piophilidae) larvae of both sexes collected from three discarded moose (Alces alces (Linnaeus) (Artiodactyla: Cervidae)) antlers of varying size, chewing damage (used to infer relative age), and P. litigata density. Males tended to be smaller and their pupation lasted longer than females. One of the antlers was highly attractive to adult P. litigata, whereas the other two attracted few or none. Individuals from one antler of low attractiveness were smaller and took longer to eclose than individuals from either other antler, perhaps due to its high larval density. The relationship between body size and pupal development time also differed among antlers, being positively correlated in the most attractive antler and negatively correlated in the two other antlers.

Type
Biodiversity and Evolution–NOTE
Copyright
© Entomological Society of Canada 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Subject editor: Leah Flaherty

References

Andersson, M. 1994. Sexual selection. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, United States of America.Google Scholar
Bates, D., Mächler, M., Bolker, B., and Walker, S. 2015. Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software, 67: 148. http://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v067.i01.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonduriansky, R. 1995. A new Nearctic species of Protopiophila Duda (Diptera: Piophilidae), with notes on its behaviour and comparison with P. latipes (Meigen). The Canadian Entomologist, 127: 859863. http://doi.org/10.4039/Ent127859-6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonduriansky, R. 1996. Effects of body size on mate choice and fecundity in the antler fly, Protopiophila litigata (Diptera: Piophilidae). M.Sc. thesis. University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada.Google Scholar
Bonduriansky, R. 2002. Leaping behaviour and responses to moisture and sound in larvae of piophilid carrion flies. The Canadian Entomologist, 134: 647656. http://doi.org/10.4039/Ent134647-5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonduriansky, R. and Brassil, C.E. 2002. Rapid and costly ageing in wild male flies. Nature, 420: 377377. http://doi.org/10.1038/420377a.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bonduriansky, R. and Brooks, R.J. 1997. A technique for measuring and marking live flies. The Canadian Entomologist, 129: 827830. http://doi.org/10.4039/Ent129827-5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonduriansky, R. and Brooks, R.J. 1998. Male antler flies (Protopiophila litigata; Diptera: Piophilidae) are more selective than females in mate choice. Canadian Journal of Zoology, 76: 12771285. http://doi.org/10.1139/z98-069.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonduriansky, R. and Brooks, R.J. 1999a. Why do male antler flies (Protopiophila litigata) fight? The role of male combat in the structure of mating aggregations on moose antlers. Ethology Ecology & Evolution, 11: 287301. http://doi.org/10.1080/08927014.1999.9522829.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonduriansky, R. and Brooks, R.J. 1999b. Reproductive allocation and reproductive ecology of seven species of Diptera. Ecological Entomology, 24: 389395. http://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2311.1999.00221.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Breheny, P. and Burchett, W. 2017. Visualization of regression models using visreg. The R Journal, 9: 5671.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fox, J. and Weisberg, S. 2011. An R companion to applied regression. Sage, Thousand Oaks, California, United States of America. Available from http://socserv.socsci.mcmaster.ca/jfox/Books/Companion [accessed 12 April 2019].Google Scholar
Michael, E.D. 1965. Characteristics of shed antlers from white-tailed deer in south Texas. The Journal of Wildlife Management, 29: 376380. http://doi.org/10.2307/3798444.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oudin, M.J., Bonduriansky, R., and Rundle, H.D. 2015. Experimental evidence of condition-dependent sexual dimorphism in the weakly dimorphic antler fly Protopiophila litigata (Diptera: Piophilidae). Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 116: 211220. http://doi.org/10.1111/bij.12549.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
R Core Team. 2018. R: a language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. Available from www.R-project.org [accessed 12 April 2019].Google Scholar
Schielzeth, H. 2010. Simple means to improve the interpretability of regression coefficients. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 1: 103113. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-210X.2010.00012.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schneider, C.A., Rasband, W.S., and Eliceiri, K.W. 2012. NIH image to image J: 25 years of image analysis. Nature Methods, 9: 671675. http://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.2089.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stearns, S.C. 1992. The evolution of life histories. Oxford University Press, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.Google Scholar
van der Have, T.M. and de Jong, G. 1996. Adult size in ectotherms: temperature effects on growth and differentiation. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 183: 329340. http://doi.org/10.1006/jtbi.1996.0224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Noordwijk, A.J. and de Jong, G. 1986. Acquisition and allocation of resources: their influence on variation in life history tactics. The American Naturalist, 128: 137142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiebe, K.L. and Bortolotti, G.R. 1992. Facultative sex ratio manipulation in American kestrels. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 30: 379386. http://doi.org/10.1007/BF00176172.CrossRefGoogle Scholar