THE EFFECT OF SEX RATIO AND GROUP DENSITY ON THE MATING SUCCESS OF TWO LINES OF DELIA PLATURA (DIPTERA: ANTHOMYIIDAE)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Many control methods target agricultural pests’ reproductive traits and so, knowledge of these traits is crucial. The seedcorn maggot, Delia platura (Diptera: Anthomyiidae), is reported as a cosmopolitan polyphagous pest species which can be found in high numbers in numerous crops. Two morphologically identical genetic lines of D. platura (H- and N- lines) with distinct distribution ranges were recently discovered. While many biological traits have been described for D. platura, no study to date has been conducted on the life history strategies and reproductive behaviors of its two lines. Using laboratory-reared colonies originating from the Montérégie region in Québec, this project investigates the effect of group composition (sex-ratio and density) on the mating success and pre-oviposition period of the two D. platura lines. We found a substantial increase in mating success with increasing proportion of males within mating groups for both lines while group density had negligeable effects. These results corroborate reports of D. platura high-density swarms in which sex ratios are usually male-biased. The pre-oviposition period decreased as the ratio of males to female increased at low density only for the N-line while the opposite trend was observed at high density for both lines. These results suggest differences between the mating systems of these two lines, with the H-line females being choosier towards potential mates than those of the N-line. We also describe reproductive traits of both lines along with their implications for integrated pest management strategies such as the sterile insect technique or the release of individuals carrying pathogens, both of which must take into account the high degree of sexual selection present in such group contexts. Keywords: reproductive biology, mating dynamics, seedcorn maggot, swarms
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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".