Ecology of zoophilic flies in livestock biocenoses of Ukraine

A P Paliy,A P Palii,O S Kysterna,A N Mashkey,L I Faly,H I Rebenko

doi:10.15421/012132

Abstract

In modern animal husbandry of Ukraine, there are still some unresolved issues related to the high number of zoophilic flies in the territories of facilities and the spread of animal infectious and parasitic diseases. A detailed study of bioecological peculiarities of the dominant zoophilic fly species contributes to improving the effectiveness of measures to control ectoparasites. 27 zoophilic fly species have been found in animal breeding complexes. The maximum number of parasitic Diptera species was recorded on cattle-keeping premises. The biological properties of Neomyia cornicina (Fabricius, 1781) (size, shape, colour, duration of preimaginal phase development) were studied. Also, we studied the dynamics of the number and daily activity of dominant fly species (Musca domestica Linnaeus, 1758, M. autumnalis De Geer, 1776, Stomoxys calcitrans (Linnaeus, 1758)). When studying the intraspecies competition, a high-degree survival of M. domestica and M. autumnalis was determined in the conditions of critical nutritional deficiency (0.5 g of nutrient medium per larva) and increased density of individuals (the imago emergence was 38.6% and 34.0%, respectively). In similar maintenance conditions, the emergence of N. cornicina imago was low (14.6%). With a two-fold increase in the insectarium volume and in the amount of nutrient medium (1 g per larva), the imago emergence of M. domestica, M. autumnalis and N. cornicina increased to 64.0%, 39.2%, and 24.0%, respectively. With an even greater increase in the amount of nutrient medium (2 g per larva), the maximum emergence of imagoes of all the studied fly species was observed (M. domestica, M. autumnalis, and N. cornicina: 96.6%, 91.2% and 72.6%, respectively). In the conditions of interspecific competition, M. autumnalis suppressed N. cornicina even in conditions of a sufficient amount of nutrient substrate. In the competition between M. domestica and M. autumnalis, house fly dominated. Increasing the nutrient medium volume narrowed the gap between the competing species.

Highlights

Zoophilic flies are an ecologically plastic insect group adapted to the most diverse conditions of existence
Twenty seven species of zoophilic flies were identified in the specialized livestock complexes for cattle, pigs, sheep, poultry located in the territory of eight regions of Ukraine (Table 1)
The largest number of zoophilic fly species was recorded in the premises for cattle keeping

Summary

Introduction

Zoophilic flies are an ecologically plastic insect group adapted to the most diverse conditions of existence. The main criterion of designating this group was that larvae and imagoes of flies have ecological (trophic, topical, phoric) relationships with farm livestock and their vital products in the conditions of their indoor and pasture maintenance. Synanthropic fly species have biotic relationships with humans and their buildings, and consume the remains of organic products for their feeding and development. It is not easy to distinguish between synanthropic and zoophilic species since the existence of farm livestock is determined by human activity (Veselkin, 1989; Malik et al, 2007). The species diversity and the number of zoophilic flies vary depending on the type and age of potential hosts (vertebrates). Zoophilic flies have different behaviour when parasitizing on farm animals. Haematobia irritans (Linnaeus, 1758) usually parasitizes on the back, legs, and udder nipples of animals, and M. autumnalis is recorded most often on the head of animals (Salem et al, 2012; Semelbauer et al, 2018)

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