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Development of Megaselia scalaris at constant temperatures and its significance in estimating the time of death

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Abstract

Megaselia scalaris (Schmitz, 1938) (Diptera: Phoridae) is a common insect in forensic science that is frequently found in indoor cases, particularly on corpses in closed environments. Although this species is useful for estimating the minimum postmortem interval (PMImin) in the absence of Calliphoridae, there is a lack of data on its development in China. Herein, we studied the development of M. scalaris exposed to seven constant temperatures ranging from 16 to 34 °C. The mean (± SD) developmental durations of M. scalaris from egg to adult stage at 16, 19, 22, 25, 28, 31, and 34 °C were 1486.9 ± 75.3, 823.7 ± 42.8, 448.2 ± 59.8, 417.7 ± 19.7, 297.2 ± 27.3, 272.9 ± 10.4, and 253.0 ± 5.0 h, respectively. The mean (± SE) lower developmental threshold temperature (TL) and the thermal summation constant (K) were determined by a linear model as 12.69 ± 0.3 °C and 4965.8 ± 227.9-degree hours, respectively. A nonlinear model estimated the lower developmental threshold temperature, intrinsic optimum temperature, and upper lethal developmental threshold temperature as 14.58, 21.00, and 34.15 °C, respectively. We established three development models to estimate the age of the immature insect, namely the isomegalen diagram, isomorphen diagram, and thermal summation model. In addition, a regression analysis of the relationship between body length and total development time from hatching to pupariation was performed. Our findings provide a basis for applications of M. scalaris in PMImin estimations.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Guangchun Liu and Dr. Dianxing Feng (Shenyang University, China) for identifying the collected specimens.

Funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 32070508, 31872258, and 82002007) and the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education.

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Author notes

  1. Yanan Zhang and Liangliang Li contributed equally to the study, and they are young researchers.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Forensic Medicine, Soochow University, Ganjiang East Road, Suzhou, 215000, China

    Yanan Zhang, Liangliang Li, Chengtao Kang, Gengwang Hu, Yi Guo, Yu Wang & Jiangfeng Wang

  2. Criminal Police Branch, Zhongshan Public Security Bureau, Zhongshan, China

    Mingqing Liao

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  1. Yanan Zhang
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Contributions

Investigation: Yanan Zhang and Mingqing Liao; methodology: Jiangfeng Wang and Yu Wang; formal analysis and investigation: Liangliang Li, Yu Wang, Chengtao Kang, Gengwang Hu, and Guo Yi; writing—original draft preparation: Yanan Zhang; writing—review and editing: Jiangfeng Wang and Yu Wang; funding acquisition: Jiangfeng Wang; supervision: Jiangfeng Wang. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yu Wang or Jiangfeng Wang.

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All animal studies were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) and carried out under the policies of Soochow University.

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Zhang, Y., Li, L., Liao, M. et al. Development of Megaselia scalaris at constant temperatures and its significance in estimating the time of death. Int J Legal Med 138, 97–106 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-023-02993-4

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