Observations on emergence and life-span of wheat bulb fly, Leptohylemyia coarctata (Fall.), under field-cage conditions.

Abstract

Emergence and life-span of wheat bulb fly, Leptohylemyia coarctata (Fall.), have been studied by the use of a field-cage-marking technique. Emergence was investigated by observing the numbers of flies emerging daily from an area of infested wheat enclosed by a cage of fine mosquito-netting, and life-span by making a daily census of marked and individually recognisable flies which had been liberated in the cage. Flies were handled only when being marked and in the later part of the work all observations were made without touching either them or the wheat.Flies were chilled to render them comatose for marking and under certain circumstances this and the marking was-harmful. Attempts were made to reduce these harmful effects.Emergence dates varied from year to year depending on the temperatures of spring and early summer, and there were also considerable differences between the emergence dates of populations of adjacent fields in the same year. Consistently, males appeared before females.The ratio of the number of flies seen to the number known to be alive on each day varied according to weather, flies being more difficult to find on windy days than on calm ones and on bright days than on dull ones.The observed life-spans of both sexes varied greatly, up to a maximum of 75 days for females and 55 days for males. An exact statement of mean life-span was not possible because there was a tendency for flies emerging later in the season to be less long-lived than those emerging earlier. Most flies of both sexes lived for over 30 days.The observed life-spans fall short of the true life-spans by amounts that depend on the proportions of living flies seen each day. Two methods are shown by which the mean unrecorded life-span can be calculated.