ISSN 2756-3693
African Journal of Biology ISSN 2167-0413 Vol. 2 (7), pp. 169-177, October, 2015. © International Scholars Journals
Full Length Research Paper
Nature of food/egg laying material on post-harvest conservation for cereals in Côte d’Ivoire
Octavio Siqueiros*, Julio César Montalbán, Fernando Paz and Benito Díaz
Zoology and Biology Laboratory, Biosciences Department, University of Cocody-Abidjan, Republic of Cote d’Ivoire.
E-mail: [email protected]
Accepted 22 August, 2015
Abstract
The reproductive behavior of maize weevil was investigated in prior research with a focus on biological traits of the insect. However, the impact of cereal food support material on some ethological and biological characteristics of Sitophilus zeamais had received little attention thus far. The focus of this study is to fill this void by exploring the existence of a causal relationship between grain characteristics and insect traits. Biological and ethological analysis revealed that the duration of sexual maturation was 4.25 ± 0.40 days for both rice and corn. The other parameters (fertility, duration of development, emergence of adults, descent’s weight, mortality and lifetime of the insect) varied according to the nature of the food/egg laying material. The above set of key behavioral parameters provided a comprehensive analysis of the scientific environment within which the contributions of the study were derived. In addition to providing a useful prognosis of the insect’s development in Cote d’Ivoire, the study confirms the causal relationship between grain characteristics and insect traits.
Key words: Rice and corn infestation, biological and ethological analysis, Sitophilus zeamais, reproductive behavior of rice and corn weevil, comparative analysis of weights of corn and rice weevil.