title: Behavioral responses of Chrysomya megacephala to natural products.
abstract: Knowledge of the behavioral responses of medically important flies to natural stimuli is critical for the development of vector control strategies. We designed, constructed, and operated the dual-choice wind tunnel to investigate the behavioral responses of the blowfly, Chrysomya megacephala (Diptera: Calliphoridae), toward two important extrinsic factors (wind speed and olfactory stimuli) that affect the flight behavior of these flies. The dual-choice wind tunnel appeared as a "T-box," consisting of two stimulus partitions and one median release partition. The correlation between wind speed and fly response showed a marked relationship, with the wind speed set at 0.5 m/s being the optimal speed. Of the 72 natural products tested, 24--all having high protein content--attracted flies at the level of greater than 50% in the rearing cages during preliminary tests, thus allowing further investigation in the dual-choice wind tunnel to further assess these responses. The behavioral response between flies exposed to the screening odors in a rearing cage and those exposed in the dual-choice wind tunnel showed a similar trend. One-day-tainted pork viscera yielded the greatest positive response among natural products tested, attracting greater than 90% of the flies included in the test population. One-day-tainted pork viscera exhibited the highest potency (1.578), exceeding 1-day-tainted beef liver, which is commonly used as the standard bait for blowflies. The usefulness and practical applications of the dual-choice wind tunnel for further investigations are also discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand.
authors.forename: Nophawan
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Bunchu
authors.forename: Kabkaew L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Sukontason
authors.forename: Jimmy K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Olson
authors.forename: Hiromu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kurahashi
authors.forename: Kom
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sukontason
mesh_terms: D000821:Animal Feed; D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D004175:Diptera / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D008460:Meat; D009812:Odorants; D012903:Smell / Q000502:physiology; D013785:Thailand; D014919:Wind