Spatial and Temporal Variation of the Blowflies Community (Diptera: Calliphoridae) From an Urban Area in Northern South America

Blowflies (Diptera: Calliphoridae) are necrophagous flies with ecological, medical, veterinary, and forensic importance. These flies carry pathogens that they spread to animals and humans, and produce myiasis. Furthermore, they are useful tools in forensic science as indicators of postmortem interva...

Full description

Autores:
Álvarez García, Deivys Moisés
Pérez Hérazo, Antonio María
Amat García, Eduardo Carlo
Tipo de recurso:
Article of investigation
Fecha de publicación:
2018
Institución:
Tecnológico de Antioquia
Repositorio:
Repositorio Tdea
Idioma:
eng
OAI Identifier:
oai:dspace.tdea.edu.co:tdea/2781
Acceso en línea:
https://dspace.tdea.edu.co/handle/tdea/2781
Palabra clave:
Forensic entomology
Entomología forense
Invasive species
Especie invasiva
Sex ratio
Proporção dos sexos
Proporción de los sexos
Necrophagous fly
Medical entomology
Rights
openAccess
License
Atribución-NoComercial 4.0 Internacional (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Description
Summary:Blowflies (Diptera: Calliphoridae) are necrophagous flies with ecological, medical, veterinary, and forensic importance. These flies carry pathogens that they spread to animals and humans, and produce myiasis. Furthermore, they are useful tools in forensic science as indicators of postmortem intervals, and in biomedicine they are successfully used in larval therapy. This study aimed to assess the spatiotemporal variation of the blowflies community from the urban area of Sincelejo City, located in the Colombian Caribbean region. Samplings were conducted from May 2012 to April 2013, using Van Someren Rydon-traps baited with bovine meat, fish, and chicken that decomposed for 48 h. Six species were registered, Cochliomyia macellaria (Fabricius, 1775) was the most abundant, followed by Lucilia eximia (Wiedemann, 1819) and Chrysomya albiceps (Wiedemann, 1819), while Chloroprocta idioidea (RobineauDesvoidy, 1830), Chrysomya megacephala (Fabricius, 1794), and Lucilia cuprina (Wiedemann, 1830) presented the least individuals. The blowflies community did not change significantly throughout the sampling months or between the periods of low or high rainfall, nor was it influenced by weather variables. Although the species composition was the same in all sampled localities, species abundances presented significant differences. The possible causes of this pattern are discussed herein. Sex ratios were female biased for all the recorded species, except C. idioidea. Our findings provide the first assessment of the blowflies community from the urban area of Sincelejo City. Key words: necrophagous fly, medical entomology, forensic entomology, invasive species, sex ratio