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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Stoneville, Mississippi » Pollinator Health in Southern Crop Ecosystems Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #404273
Research Project: Ecological Assessment and Mitigation Strategies to Reduce the Risks of Bees to Stressors in Southern Crop Ecosystems

Location: Pollinator Health in Southern Crop Ecosystems Research

Title: Pollen associated with a Texas population of blowflies (Diptera: Calliphoridae) highlights underappreciated aspects of their biology

Author
item RANGEL, JULIANA - Texas A&M Agricultural Experiment Station
item Lau, Pierre
item STRAUSS, BRANDON - Texas A&M Agricultural Experiment Station
item HILDINGER, EMILY - Texas A&M Agricultural Experiment Station
item HERNANDEZ, BETTY - Texas A&M Agricultural Experiment Station
item RODRIGUEZ, STEPHANIE - Texas A&M Agricultural Experiment Station
item BRYANT, VAUGHN - Texas A&M Agricultural Experiment Station
item TARONE, AARON - Texas A&M Agricultural Experiment Station

Submitted to: Ecological Entomology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/23/2023
Publication Date: 11/14/2023
Citation: Rangel, J., Lau, P.W., Strauss, B., Hildinger, E., Hernandez, B., Rodriguez, S., Bryant, V., Tarone, A.M. 2023. Pollen associated with a Texas population of blowflies (Diptera: Calliphoridae) highlights underappreciated aspects of their biology. Ecological Entomology. https://doi.org/10.1111/een.13298.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/een.13298

Interpretive Summary: Blowflies are known to be important as ecosystem decomposers, but can be a role in pollination. We conducted three survey-type experiments, in which we collected blow flies from field locations, identified to species level, and sorted them by sex. We then dissected out their guts and performed the acetolysis procedure on the gut contents (either from individual flies or from pools of five flies of the same sex) to count and identify the pollen to the lowest taxonomic level possible. We found that 1) blow flies indeed consume pollen belonging to a variety of plant taxa, 2) some individuals ingested hundreds (if not thousands) of pollen grains, and 3) there were differences in pollen ingestion across species and between males and females. Overall, female blow flies ingested significantly more pollen grains than males. Our findings suggest that pollen is widely ingested by blow flies, and thus, pollen ingestion seems to be an underappreciated aspect of blow fly biology. If the pollen is consumed for nutritional purposes, the impacts of our findings have wide implications for disease ecology, pollination biology, and even plant diversity.

Technical Abstract: 1. Blow flies (Diptera: Calliphoridae) are acknowledged pollinators of several plants. However, there are many open questions regarding their importance in pollination ecology, as well as the role of pollen in blow fly biology. Furthermore, to date, there has not been a comprehensive assessment of pollen use by blow flies that visit flowers and/or trees and thus, it is not known if individuals typically visit a few types of flowers per trip or many. Similarly, there is evidence that at least one species of blow fly (Lucilia sericata) can digest pollen and use the protein therein as an oogenic resource. However, it is not known if this is a commonly used strategy for protein acquisition in these insects, given that they are more commonly considered to be associated with feces, carrion, and myiasis. With these open questions in mind, we surveyed the pollen found in blow fly guts to a) determine the degree to which blow flies consume pollen, b) establish which types of pollen are associated with blow flies, c) determine if there is evidence for species-specific pollen use by blow flies, and d) establish if there is evidence of sex-specific pollen use in a local population of blow flies in Texas. To do so, we collected blow flies from natural habitats around Central Texas from 2016 to 2019 and dissected their gut to look for the presence of pollen. We found evidence for widespread pollen use from a variety of flies and plant types and discovered a bias in the amount of pollen collected from female blow flies as compared to males in some but not all collected species. Thus, pollen appears to represent a relatively underappreciated aspect of blow fly biology with the potential for several unknown or underappreciated ecological impacts ranging from disease ecology to plant diversity.