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Relations between environment, migration and reproduction in a seed bug, Neacoryphus bicrucis (Say) (Heteroptera: Lygaeidae)

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Summary

The seed feeding bug Neacoryphus bicrucis migrates by flight, often at great altitudes, and evidently is able to disperse over long distances. Non-diapausing females provided with ample food and mates histolyze their flight muscles soon after adult eclosion, and thus undertake very little flight. If food density is below a certain threshold flight ability is retained at a constant high level through most of adult life, while egg production becomes a linear function of the logarithm of food density. Bugs totally starved from adult eclosion onwards survive for a month or more with only a minor decrease in flight ability. Females also retain their flight potential when subjected to lack of mates or diapause-inducing photoperiodic conditions. Most males are able to fly throughout their adult lives under all conditions studied, but the tendency to fly is enhanced by lack of food or mates.

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Author notes

  1. Christer Solbreck

    Present address: Department of Forest Entomology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Box 7044, S-75007, Uppsala, Sweden

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  1. Department of Zoology, University of Stockholm, Box 6801, S-11386, Stockholm, Sweden

    Christer Solbreck & Ingela Pehrson

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  1. Christer Solbreck
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  2. Ingela Pehrson
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Solbreck, C., Pehrson, I. Relations between environment, migration and reproduction in a seed bug, Neacoryphus bicrucis (Say) (Heteroptera: Lygaeidae). Oecologia 43, 51–62 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00346672

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00346672

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