• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
• /
• v.22 no.2
• /
• pp.51-57
• /
• 2011

Reproductive activity in the economically important insect, Antheraea mylitta is very important because the female reproduces only once in her life time and the aging is very rapid and costly. It is a capital breeder and strictly a monoandrous species. To know how strategically the insect behaves and the male allocates its ejaculate resource more prudently during its successive mating with virgin females to maximize its own fitness and the fitness of the female with whom it mated, both being most important to sericulture industry. So, the present study was undertaken and the results revealed fresh and virgin females always prefer to mate with fresh virgin males (84%) and receives high dose of ejaculates leading to higher hatchability than to virgin males of one day old (13.7%) and one day old males with mating experience (2.3%). The ejaculation size (as referred to eupyrene sperm count in the ejaculation) declined significantly over successive mating (r = -0.9931, P < 0.001), so also the male body weight (r = -0.9560, P < 0.001). The quantity of ejaculate passed to female also dramatically declined during aging (r = -0.9982, P < 0.001). It was found that male weight contribute substantially to the quantum of ejaculate (r = -0.9519, P < 0.001), so also higher fecund females receive relatively more ejaculate than the lower group to reach higher reproductive fitness. The life time fecundity was found to be $334{\pm}31$.

• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.19-24
• /
• 2005

Nutrition is very essential for growth, development and reproduction. The quantitative impetus of nutritional factor on adult characters and reproductive fitness was studied in Antheraea mylitta by providing fresh leaves of Terminalia tomentosa for 1 to 4 times a day to $5^{th}$ instar larvae. All the characters have improved on giving fresh diet more times over the single diet. The adult weight has strong effect on the reproductive potential i.e., female pupa and moth weight, survivability, pupation rate, emergence percentage, fecundity, fertility, egg weight and hatched out larval weight. The improvement recorded to the tune of $70\%,\;77.1\%,\;115.4\%,\;36.7\%,\;45.9\%\;and\;218.3\%$ in larval weight gain, survivability, pupation rate, female pupa weight, moth weight and fecundity respectively when fresh diets were provided 4 times a day against single diet. The adult emergence percentage has increased from $66.4\%\;to\;96.2\%$ and fertility rose from $52.2\%\;to\;93.6\%$. The weight of eggs and the larvae hatched out of it also found to be significantly higher in 4 diets a day condition. The study revealed that optimization of fresh diet frequency should be maintained to obtain higher egg production and fertility in order to get vigorous larvae to continue the generation.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
• /
• v.18 no.11
• /
• pp.1662-1668
• /
• 2005

This review has been done to examine sex-linked dwarf gene in broiler production in hot-humid climates. Introduction of sex-linked dwarf gene especially in hot harsh tropical environments brings a great advantage for broiler production. The heavy broiler parent suffers due to the stress of these adverse climates. Sex-linked dwarf genes reduce body weight, egg weight, but are superior for adaptability under harsh tropical environments, with a lower requirement for housing and feed, better survivability and reproductive fitness giving fewer defective eggs, more hatching eggs, better fertility, hatchability, feed conversion efficiency and resistance to disease. Overall the cost of chick production from dwarf hens is lower than from their normal siblings. Market weights of broilers from sexlinked dwarf dams is almost similar to those of broilers from normal dams with normal sires. But the net benefit of broiler production from sex-linked dwarf dams is found to be greater than that of broilers from normal dams. This will be the most important to the rural communities in Bangladesh and in other countries where the similar environment and socio-economic conditions exist. Therefore, sexlinked dwarf hens might be used in broiler breeding plan as well as broiler production in the tropics.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
• /
• v.48 no.3
• /
• pp.308-318
• /
• 2024

Background: Many plants compensate for the damage caused by herbivorous insects through tolerance responses. Besides directly causing plant tissue loss and seed production reduction, herbivory causes phenological changes in the host plant. However, little is known about the fitness costs of phenological changes caused by tolerance responses to herbivorous attacks. Results: The girdling beetle Phytoecia rufiventris caused a short-term decrease in the number of flowers of the host plant Erigeron annuus. However, accelerated growth restored the number of flowers, but after a 2-week delay. With an objective to examine whether the tolerance response with such a delay fully compensates the fitness, we experimentally reproduced a 2-week delay in germination under greenhouse and field settings. Under both conditions, intraspecific competition resulted in serious defects in the growth and reproduction of E. annuus plants which of germination was delayed. However, delayed germination (DG) resulted in better growth when competition and herbivory were eliminated from the field. Thus, we showed that the tolerance response to restore reproductive production does not fully compensate for the fitness loss caused by insect attack; rather, the delay in seed production in attacked plants leads to DG and subsequent inferiority in intraspecific competition. Conclusions: Our results imply that compensation for floral production after an herbivore attack does not fully restore offspring fitness in the presence of intraspecific competition and herbivory. Assessing the ecological consequences of defense traits in an appropriate layer of interaction is critical to interpreting adaptive values.

• Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
• /
• v.46 no.3
• /
• pp.395-408
• /
• 2013

Environmental condition can induce changes in early life-history traits in order to maximise the ecological fitness. Here I investigated how temperature change and variation in human aquatic activity/behaviour affect early life-history consequences in fish using a dynamic-state-dependent model. In this study, I developed a general fish's life-history model including three life-history states depend-ing on foraging activity, such as body mass, mass of reproductive tissue (i.e., gonadal development) and accumulated stress (i.e., cellular or physiological damage). I assumed the level of foraging activity maximises reproductive success-ultimately, fitness. The model predicts that growth rate, development of reproductive tissues and damage accumulation are greater in higher temperature whereas higher human aquatic activity rapidly reduced the growth rate and development of reproductive tissue and increased damage accumulation. While higher foraging activity in higher temperature is less affected by human aquatic activity, the foraging activity in lower temperature rapidly declined with human aquatic activity. Moreover, lower survival rate in higher temperature or human aquatic activity was independent on mortality rate due to human aquatic activity or mortality rate when foraging activity, respectively. However, the survival rate in lower temperature or human aquatic activity was dependent on these mortality rates. My findings suggest that including of early life-history traits in relation to climate-change and human aquatic activity on the analysis may improve conservation plan and health assessment in aquatic ecosystem.

• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
• /
• v.10 no.2
• /
• pp.137-141
• /
• 2005

Though many insecticides are commercially available, development of resistance, pest resurgence and effects on non-target organisms led to the search for alternate insect pest management (IPM) strategy based on larval growth and reproductive fitness. Reproductive potential of insects depends on its acquiring of vitellogenic competence which is under hormonal control. Exogenous application of analogues of JR (JHAs) and ecdysterone could derail normal development and reproduction in insects by manipulating an array of physiological processes. In the rice pest, brown planthopper, Nilaparvata lugens, JHA, hydroprene induced metathetely from the fifth (final) instar nymphs in an age-dependent manner. Day 0 of the final instar showed highest sensitivity to induce this abnormal development. Adults emerged from treated day 3 nymphs looked normal. Both the morphotypes were reproductively incompetent and showed partial to complete sterility. Pre-adult exposure of the ovarian tissue to hydroprene suppressed mitotic division of germinal cells and induced abnormalities in the later s1ages of growth and differentiation of ovary in N. lugens. More over the nymphal exposure to hydroprene inhibited patency changes of follicular epithelium and affected competence of the follicles for yolk sequestration. In the absence of ovarian growth and oocyte differentiation, germarium found disintegrated, trophic core regressed and terminal oocytes resorbed. Hydroprene exposure to newly ecdysed brachypterous females did not affect ovarian development and egg production. Proper larval-adult transition appeared as a. prerequisite for vitellogenic competence in N. lugens for which the ovarian tissues must be exposed to ecdysterone in the internal milieu devoid of JH.

• Animal cells and systems
• /
• v.2 no.1
• /
• pp.55-63
• /
• 1998

The effects of inflorescence herbivory and flowering time on plant architecture and reproductive yields were examined with a perennial herbacious species, Vicia cracca, occurring in Natick, Massachusetts, USA. Natural herbivory on inflorescences was observed among the total of 157 plants during a growing season. Vegetative and reproductive characters were measured in the field as well as in the lab depending on the characters. Approximately 64% of the plants were subjected to herbivory on inflorescences. Plants were classified into three groups; unbrowsed plants, partially browsed, and totally browsed plants, according to the level of herbivory on inflorescences of each plant. Plants were also categorized by their flowering time such as early vs late flowering plants. Herbivores tended to favor inflorescences on rather small plants, resulting in a pattern of totally contact or partially intact inflorescences on taller plants. The mean number of stems, which was assumed to be a direct result of severe herbivory in this population, differed among herbivory groups. There also was a tendency that plants flowering late in the season had more nodes with more leaves, suggesting that herbivory on stem tips early in the season before flowering might have induced growth of side branches or branchlets along the main stems. Comparison between unbrowsed and partially browsed plants showed that the latter compensated for browsing in terms of numbers of inflorescences, fruits, seeds and seed size (weight), though they did not compensate in flower number. The probability of fruit production (presence vs absence of fruits) and seed weight declined toward the end of the season. These results suggest that resources are deficient at the end of the season. Almost complete reproductive failure in totally browsed plants is attributed to the destruction of inflorescence display and the disadvantage of small vegetative size of those plants. After all, in this population, a moderate level of herbivory on inflorescences did not reduce the maternal fitness of the plants. However, severe herbivory on inflorescences resulted in antagonistic interactions between plants and herbivores.

• Journal of Apiculture
• /
• v.33 no.4
• /
• pp.261-268
• /
• 2018

Queen honey bees (Apis cerana) can be reared artificially on demand by the use of grafting technique. The technique consists of grafting young worker larvae into queen cell cups and raising in a queenless strong colony. As the age of grafted larvae for queen rearing exhibited several aspects related to quality and reproductive potential of queen, this study were conducted to investigate the influence of age of grafted larva on morphological characteristics and lifespan of queen, and the growth of colony she headed. Our results demonstrated that queens reared from young worker larvae (i.e., less than 1-day old larvae) were significantly larger in size (i.e., body weight and thorax width) than that of queens reared from 2-day old worker larvae. Moreover, queens reared from younger worker larvae initiated egg-laying earlier, stored more spermatozoa in spermatheca and had a longer lifespan compared to queens raised from older worker larvae. We also found a significant positive effect of queen grafting age on the production of worker and drone brood, adult worker population in colonies headed by queens reared from younger larvae. These findings suggested that rearing queens from brood grafted at the earliest possible age could increase the reproductive potential of queen as well as fitness of colony she head.

• Animal cells and systems
• /
• v.6 no.3
• /
• pp.233-237
• /
• 2002

The pheromonal repelling response occurs when a combination of female and male pheromones is found to be less attractive to courting males than are female pheromones alone. This repelling response may act to conserve a courting males’reproductive fitness by minimizing ma1e-male competition within a courting group. Recently, a Pheromonal repelling response was first reported for vertebrates in the red-spotted newt, Notophthalmus viride-scens. A male cloacal pheromone, a ∼33 kDa protein, was identified as a repelling pheromone. In this study, to determine whether both the main olfactory epithelium (MOE) and/or the vomeronasal organ (VNO) are activated by the repelling pheromone, we recorded electrical field potentials from both olfactory epithelia while applying the repelling pheromone. The repelling pheromone induced electrical responses from both olfactory organs, and the magnitude of the response was greater in the VNO than in the MOE. Our results suggest that both the VNO and MOE may be involved in the pheromonal repelling response.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
• /
• 2000.04b
• /
• pp.650-654
• /
• 2000

Particle Imaging Velocimetry (PIV) is becoming one of essential methods to measure velocity fields of fluid flows. In this paper, a genetic algorithm capable of tracking same particle pairs on two separated images is introduced. The fundamental of the developed technique is based on that on-to-one correspondence is found between two tracer particles selected in two image planes by taking advantage of combinatorial optimization of the genetic algorithm. The fitness function controlling reproductive success in the genetic algorithm is expressed by physical distances between the selected tracer particles. The capability of the developed genetic algorithm is verified by a computer simulation on a farced vortex flow.