In recent years there has been considerable interest in laboratory rearing of Toxorhynchites mosquitoes for use as biological control agents (Vongtangswad and Trpis 1980) and foi the assay of dengue viruses (Eshita et al. 1982). Although larvae of these mosquitoes are cannibalistic (Steffan and Evenhuis 1981), mass rearing methods have been described for some species which have yielded pupation...

Consistent individual differences in behaviour have been well documented in a variety of animal taxa, but surprisingly little is known about the fitness and life-history consequences of such individual variation. In wild salmonids, the timing of fry emergence from gravel spawning nests has been suggested to be coupled with individual behavioural traits. Here, we further investigate the link bet...

Abstract Background Egg parasitoids belonging to the genus Trichogramma (Hymenoptera: Trichogrammatidae) are important natural enemies that have been successfully used in biological control programs and mostly reared on Mediterranean flour moth, Ephestia kuehniella (Zeller) (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae). Host quality is a crucial factor can determine parasitoid fitness. Main body Laboratory studies ...

BACKGROUND As farmers do not often keep a record of the expenditures for rearing, an economic tool that provides insight into the cost of rearing is useful. In the Netherlands, an economic tool (Jonkos) has been developed that can be used by farmers to obtain insight into the cost of rearing on their farm. The first objective of this study is to calculate the total cost of rearing young stock i...

As the incidence of Anastrepha fraterculus (Wiedemann) has increased in Southern Brazil in the past 3 yr, an initiative to release sterile flies and parasitoids has started. In order to make feasible the mass-rearing of the parasitoid Diachasmimorpha longicaudata (Ashmed), this study investigated the suitability of A. fraterculus larvae derived from irradiated eggs as host for D. longicaudata T...

Background: The larvae of Lucilia sericata are efficiently and widely used in maggot therapy. The aim of this study was to investigate some environmental factors that influence the mass rearing of Lucilia sericata as the most suitable candidates for maggot therapy in Iran. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in fli...

the number of lambs sold per ewe mated in the breeding flock has a considerable impact on sheep operation profitability. this depends primarily on fertility, prolificacy (# of lambs), and lamb survival, mothering ability, milk production of the ewe and lamb growth rate. optimal reproduction does vary by environment and management system – some sheep operations don’t want a lambing rate over 200...

Elements contained within calcified structures of fish, molluscs, bivalves and corals may provide a means to determine the characteristics of the environment occupied by an organism over time. In order to establish these characteristics it is first important to establish a link between one or more environmental variables and the concentration of elements within such a calcified structure. Black...

The zebrafish (Danio rerio) has become a well-established experimental model in many research fields but the loss of the primary sex-determining region during the process of domestication renders laboratory strains of zebrafish susceptible to the effects of environmental factors on sex ratios. Further, an essential husbandry aspect - the optimal rearing density to avoid stress-induced masculini...

The water strider Limnogonus fossarum fossarum (F.) (Hemiptera: Gerridae) shows a macropterous, micropterous, and apterous polymorphism. Although a long photoperiod condition induces winged morphs, preliminary studies have revealed that crossing between winged morphs increased the proportion of macropterous individuals, suggesting that the genetic factors also affect wing-morph determination in...