Local population differences in emergence of cabbage root flies from south-west Lancashire: implications for pest forecasting and population divergence

Abstract

ABSTRACT.

• 1Emergence of cabbage root fly, Delia radicum (L.), from overwintering populations of puparia collected from twenty-one sites in south-west Lancashire, was extremely variable.
• 2The patterns of emergence indicated that there were two extreme biotypes, one with early- and the other with late-emerging flies. There was also evidence of an intermediate biotype, tending more to early than to late emergence.
• 3This gradient of biotypes, or clinal divergence, was maintained by populations breeding at different times and by females mating close to their sites of emergence. Non-dispersive females then perpetuated their genotype within their own locality.
• 4The time of emergence was not obviously associated with the type of host-crop on which larvae had developed.
• 5The late-emerging biotype was most prevalent around Halsall. The minimum distance between populations of the late- and the early-emerging biotypes was 16 km. 20 km south-east from Halsall only half of the fly population was early-emerging, possibly a result of a displacement of the Halsall biotype by the prevailing NW wind.
• 6Regional-based forecasts will need to take into account the emergence characteristics of the populations to predict the peak periods of cabbage root fly activity adequately in south-west Lancashire and other areas where emergence patterns differ.