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Environmental Effects Upon Reproduction of a Mushroom-infesting Cecid Fly, Mycophila speyeri (Barnes) (Diptera: Ceciodomyiidae)1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 May 2012

Shiu-Ling Chung  and
Robert Snetsinger
Shiu-Ling Chung
Affiliation:
Department of Entomology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania
Robert Snetsinger
Affiliation:
Department of Entomology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania
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Abstract

Mycophila speyeri Barnes is presently the most important mushroom-infesting cecid fly in Pennsylvania. Larval paedogenesis is the main means of reproduction (used by this species). Adult cecid fiies and sexual reproduction arc rarely observed in mushroom growing houses. The higher temperatures of spawn-run (70 ° to 75 °F.) are very favorable to paedogenetic reproduction of M. speyeri. Under these conditions, a generation is completed in about one week and about ten daughter-larvae per mother-larva are produced. The quantity of malt in the culture medium, the age of the spawn, and strain differences in spawn also play roles in the length of a generation and the number of young produced by a mother-larva. The lower temperatures (55 ° to 60 °F.), normal during mushroom cropping, approximately triple the time required to complete a generation. Prevention of cecid infestations during the spawn-run and sanitation to prevent spread, once larvae are present, are important considerations in the control of M. speyeri. Adult cecid flies occur only when populations become crowded on old growing media.

Type
Articles
Information
The Canadian Entomologist , Volume 97 , Issue 12 , December 1965 , pp. 1318 - 1323
Copyright
Copyright © Entomological Society of Canada 1965

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