Faculty of Science, Department of Ecosystem Biology & Soil and Water Research Infrastructure, University of South Bohemia, Branišovská 1760, CZ-37005 České Budějovice, Czech Republic.
Czech Academy of Sciences, Biology Centre, Institute of Entomology, Branišovská 1760, CZ-37005 České Budějovice, Czech Republic.
J Insect Sci. 2024 Jan 1;24(1). doi: 10.1093/jisesa/ieae012.
Body mass underpins many ecological processes at the level of individuals, populations, and communities. Often estimated in arthropods from linear morphological traits such as body length or head width, these relationships can vary even between closely related taxa. Length-mass relationships of mosquito (Diptera: Culicidae) larvae are poorly known despite the importance of this family to disease and aquatic ecology. To fill this gap, we measured ontogenetic changes in linear traits (body length, head width, and thorax width) and dry and wet masses and estimated length- and width-mass relationships in larvae of 3 culicid species inhabiting different niches: the tropical Aedes albopictus (Skuse, 1894), the temperate Culex pipiens (Linnaeus, 1758), and the snowmelt Ochlerotatus punctor (Kirby, 1837). We compared our results with published length-mass allometries of other aquatic dipteran larvae. We showed that thorax width and body length, but not head width, reliably predicted body mass for our 3 species. The length-mass allometry slopes in aquatic dipterans varied considerably between and within families but were independent of phylogeny, specimen handling, preservation techniques, and data fitting methods. Slope estimates became less precise with decreasing sample size and size range. To obtain reliable estimates of the allometric slopes, we have thus recommended using data on all larval stages for intraspecific allometries and a wide range of species for interspecific allometries. We also cautioned against the indiscriminate use of length-mass allometries obtained for other taxa or collected at lower taxonomic resolutions, e.g., when using length-mass relationships to estimate biomass production at a given site.
体重是个体、种群和群落水平许多生态过程的基础。在节肢动物中，通常根据线性形态特征（如体长或头宽）来估算体重，但即使在亲缘关系密切的分类群中，这些关系也可能存在差异。尽管蚊子（双翅目：蚊科）幼虫对疾病和水生生态系统很重要，但它们的体长-体重关系却知之甚少。为了填补这一空白，我们测量了 3 种栖息在不同生境中的蚊科幼虫的线性特征（体长、头宽和胸宽）和干重与湿重的变化，并估算了幼虫的体长和宽-重关系：热带的白纹伊蚊（Skuse，1894）、温带的库蚊（Linnaeus，1758）和雪融期的斑蚊（Kirby，1837）。我们将结果与其他水生双翅目幼虫的已发表体长-体重异速生长关系进行了比较。我们发现，对于我们的 3 个物种，胸宽和体长而不是头宽可以可靠地预测体重。水生双翅目幼虫的体长-体重异速生长斜率在科内和科间差异很大，但与系统发育无关，与标本处理、保存技术和数据拟合方法无关。斜率估计随着样本量和大小范围的减少而变得不精确。为了获得可靠的异速生长斜率估计，我们建议在种内异速生长中使用所有幼虫阶段的数据，在种间异速生长中使用广泛的物种数据。我们还警告不要不加区分地使用其他分类群获得的体长-体重异速生长关系或在较低的分类分辨率下收集的数据，例如，当使用体长-体重关系来估计特定地点的生物量生产时。
