Supplementing Blood Diet With Plant Nectar Enhances Egg Fertility in Stomoxys calcitrans.

ABSTRACT: Stomoxys calcitrans (stable fly) is a cosmopolitan biting fly of both medical and veterinary importance. Unlike blood-feeding-related behavior of stable fly, its plant feeding, the fitness value, and the S. calcitrans-plant interaction are less understood. Here we show based on two chloroplast DNA genes, ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase large chain (rbcL) and the intergenic spacer gene trnH-psbA, that field-collected male and female stable flies fed on various plant species. We investigated the fitness cost of plant feeding using Parthenium hysterophorus, one of the plant species identified to have been fed on by the field-collected flies. Supplementation of blood feeding with a flowering P. hysterophorus plant as nectar source enhanced egg hatcha

SUBMITTER: Tawich SK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8042263 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature