avoiding infections in rearing programs

Koen.Berwaerts berwaert at uia.ua.ac.be
Wed Jan 26 04:26:46 EST 2000


Hello,

Last year I started a culture of Pararge aegeria (Lepidoptera: Satyrinae) 
for my PhD-project (University of Antwerp).
We collected females in a forest (end of july-begin of august) and put
them into small cages with full grown plants
(Poa trivialis). When eggs hatched, we put them individually in plastic
jars and supplied them (mostly every day, sometimes with 2 or 3 days
interval) with blades of grass. The whole system was placed outside. The
problems rose at the end of september.
Several body parts of the green caterpillars became black. In a later
stadium, they died (whole body was black and shrinked). At this moment
more than 75% of my whole population is gone (750 individuals). The
cterpillars were investigated by some specialists and they told me that it
was Bacillus thuringiensis, that infected my culture.
This year I'll start a new culture, but now in laboratory circumstances. I
want to give all caterpillars a full grown plant (and not only
blades)(=more optimal conditions).

Can anybody tell me how to avoid these deadly infections? Is it a solution
to put the whole system in the laboratory and rear the butterflies in more
optimal conditions (and so less sensitive for infections) ?

With kind regards,   

********************************************************************
Berwaerts Koen
Laboratory of Animal Ecology
Department of Biology
University of Antwerp (U.I.A.)
Universiteitsplein 1
B-2610 Wilrijk (Antwerp)
Belgium
tel.: +32 3 820 22 62 -- fax.: +32 3 820 22 71
E-mail: berwaert at uia.ua.ac.be
Http://bio-www.uia.ac.be/bio/deco
*********************************************************************


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