الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract The ecological and biological studies of Megachile minutissima, as well as the effect of temperature and cold storage periods on prepupal diapause and post-diapause development were studied. The ecological studies indicated that the nesting efficiency of M minutissima was the highest rate in the first type of artificial nest shelters model No. I. EI-Marzoukia region was the best location for the nesting of M minutissima, followed by EI-Zaheria, Tel EI-Hattab Bridge and EI-Khofeig region. The highest percentage of completed straws was observed at the left side and decreased gradually to the center then increased toward the right side of nest shelter. Meanwhile, the greatest number of live prepuae was founded in EI-Zaheria region, while the highest number of transformed pupae and adults was recorded in EI-Marzoukia region. The upper cells from (6th till 10th cells) had highest percentage of live prepupae. The highest number of live prepupae was recorded in the fifth category of straws contained 7 cells, which decreased gradually with decreasing the number of cells inside the examined straws. The prepupae could enter in diapause for long time reached to 8.9 months for females and 9.8 months for males before their transformation into pupae. Regarding the effect of temperature and cold storage periods, data indicated that the minimum time needed in hot incubator at 30°C to transform prepupae into pupae, adult males and females was 7, 17 and 19 days, respectively, while the maximum time was 26 days for all stages. The percentage of emerged adults was 60% at 146 days storage, and 40% at 188 days storage, and decreased thereafter to 28% and 4% at 193 and 300 days storage, respectively. |