Is aggregated oviposition by the blow flies <i>Lucilia sericata</i> and <i>Phormia regina</i> (Diptera: Calliphoridae) really pheromone‐mediated?
Bibliographic record
Abstract
When female blow flies Lucilia sericata and Phormia regina (Diptera: Calliphoridae) oviposit in aggregations on carrion, even-aged larval offspring reportedly develop faster, and fewer are parasitized or preyed upon. The benefits of aggregated oviposition equally affect con- and heterospecific larvae sharing a resource. The benefits imply that female blow flies engage in coordinated, pheromone-mediated oviposition behavior. Yet, repeated attempts to identify oviposition pheromones have failed invoking doubt that they exist. Simply by regurgitating and feeding on carrion, flies may produce attractive semiochemicals. If flies were to aggregate in response to feeding flies rather than ovipositing flies, then the semiochemical cue(s) may be associated with the salivary gland. Working with L. sericata and P. regina and using liver as a surrogate oviposition medium, we test the hypotheses, and present data in their support, that (i) gravid or nongravid females ovipositing and/or feeding on liver enhance its attractiveness to gravid and nongravid females; (ii) females respond to semiochemicals from feeding heterospecific females; (iii) females respond equally well to semiochemicals from feeding con- and heterospecific females; (iv) macerated head tissues of females applied to liver enhance its attractiveness; and (v) females in direct contact with and feeding on liver, but not when next to yet physically separated from liver, enhance attraction of flies. We conclude that oviposition site-seeking females do not respond to an oviposition pheromone. Instead, they appear to coopt semiochemicals associated with feeding flies as resource indicators, taking chances that resources are suitable for oviposition, and that ovipositing flies are present.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".