Slides 1-12
What are the basic ways that insects can be used for medicine?
As physical tools, research subjects, sources of chemicals in pharmaceutical development
What is parthenogeneis?
Development of an embryo without fertilization
What are haemotaxicological studies?
Using insects instead of lab animals for toxicity studies
What is/are the benefit/s of internal fertilization?
It wastes less sperm and frees insects from having to mate in humid areas.
What are three forms of parthenogenesis and what sex do they produce?
Arrhenotoky- produce males (Bees)
Thelytoky-produce females (Aphids)
Deuterotoky (a.k.a. Amphitoky)- produce both sexes (Gall wasps)
Why is it bad, in an evolutionary sense, for an animal to have a bigger brain than it needs for survival?
Overuse of energy in order for neurons in the brain to process information. For example, the more information that a fly’s eye needs to process, the more energy each unit of information is consumed.
Describe how maggot therapy works and when it would be used.
Maggots eat necrotic flesh, leaving health skin alone. It is used with infected burns and wounds when infections are showing resistance to antibiotics.
What are the orders in which females are XY/XO (O being no chromosome) and males XX?
Lepidoptera and Trichopterathe
What are Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) monitors used to test?
They test surfaces for the presence of biological contamination.
Name three ways sperm can be transferred in Pterygotes. How is this different for Apterygotes?
Pterygotes: Freely (without spermatophore), in spermatophore (requires rupture or digestion of capsule), and traumatic insemination (a male pierces female abdomen and injects sperm)
Apterygotes: They use indirect or external sperm transfer in which a spermatophore is deposited in a location for the female to pick up and it required humidity to prevent spermatophore desiccation.
What is the term for the reproduction of larval insects that is parthenogenic and viviparous?
Paedogenesis
What bioluminescence enzyme produces a firefly’s bioluminesce via a chemical reaction?
Luciferase
What is voltinism? Name the most and least productive
Voltinism is the number of broods an insect can have in a year. Multivoltines are the most productive as they can have two or more broods in a year. Semivoltines are the least productive as insects can take more than a year to complete their life cycle.
Name 3 purposes of insects used as research subjects
Behavioral studies, evolution of neurons, genetics, haemotaxicological studies
How do ATP monitors work?
They combine luciferase with a swapped sample from the surface. The amount of light produced, measured by a luminometer inside a handheld device, indicates the amount of living organic material present.