DOI: 10.5061/dryad.2fqz61305
title: Effect of temperatures and diets on the life cycle of Ephestia elutella

description: Ephestia elutella (Hübner) (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae), an omnivorous pest
 with a wide range of hosts, is responsible for the damage and loss of many
 stored commodities. However, the parasitoid wasp Habrobracon hebetor (Say)
 (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) utilizes 5th instar E. elutella larvae to breed.
 In order to support the large-scale production of E. elutella for research
 and parasitoid rearing, we explored the effects of diet (artificial diet
 and tobacco) on the mortality, developmental duration, adult longevity,
 fecundity, and population parameters of E. elutella reared at 19, 22, 25,
 28, and 31˚C using age-stage, two-sex life tables. Increasing the
 temperature from 19 to 31˚C significantly affected the stage-specific
 mortality, reproductive parameters, and population parameters of E.
 elutella. Specifically, both developmental duration and adult longevity
 decreased with increasing temperature. For both diets, pre-adult mortality
 was lowest at 25˚C, but was lower overall in populations fed an artificial
 diet. The developmental duration, adult longevity, and mean generation
 time (T) were significantly lower in populations fed an artificial diet,
 whereas the intrinsic rate of increase (r) and finite rate of increase (λ)
 were significantly lower in populations fed tobacco leaves. Temperature
 appears to have a significant effect on the development and reproduction
 of E. elutella, and a combination of 25˚C and artificial diet may be the
 most conducive to large-scale breeding. This study provides a theoretical
 basis for the mass rearing of E. elutella to support pest control
 applications in tobacco warehouses.
description:  Age-stage, two-sex life tables
description: # Effect of temperatures and diets on the life cycle of Ephestia elutella
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.2fqz61305](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.2fqz61305) ## Description of the data and file structure One-hundred pairs each of *E. elutella* fed either an artificial diet or tobacco leaves were reared at different temperatures (19, 22, 25, 28, and 31˚C) in a climate-controlled (75% ± 5% RH, 16 h light/8 h dark photoperiod) chamber (RXZ-380A-LED, Ningbo Jiangnan Instrument Factory, China). Adults emerging within 24 h were collected in oviposition jars (10 cm diameter, 8 cm height, with a 4.5 cm diameter lid opening) covered with gauze (200-mesh) for aeration. After 3 h, 110 eggs were selected from each population. Individual eggs were transferred to a perforated plastic box (3 cm diameter, 1.5 cm height), placed on the surface of a sample of each diet, and moved to temperature-controlled incubators. After hatching, fresh food was added every 3-4 days and larval deaths were recorded every day. Following pupation, excess food and feces were removed and unhatched pupae were counted. Following emergence, male and female adults (feeding on the same diet) emerging on the same day (within 24 h) were paired in a plastic box and 2×2 cm samples of tobacco leaves were provided for oviposition. Serial number, date, and temperature were marked and recorded in a table. The number of eggs laid by female adults and the longevity of female and male adults were also recorded. Data were recorded daily until all adults died. ### Files and variables #### File: R19℃.txt **Description:** *Ephestia elutella *was reared with artificial diet under 19 °C ##### Variables * diet and temperature #### File: R22℃.txt **Description:** *Ephestia elutella *was reared with artificial diet under 22 °C ##### Variables * diet and temperature #### File: R28℃.txt **Description:** *Ephestia elutella *was reared with artificial diet under 28 °C ##### Variables * diet and temperature #### File: R25℃.txt **Description:** *Ephestia elutella *was reared with artificial diet under 25 °C ##### Variables * diet and temperature #### File: R31℃.txt **Description:** *Ephestia elutella *was reared with artificial diet under 31 °C ##### Variables * diet and temperature #### File: Y22℃.txt **Description:** *Ephestia elutella *was reared with  tobacco leaves under 22 °C ##### Variables * diet and temperature #### File: Y19℃.txt **Description:** *Ephestia elutella *was reared with  tobacco leaves under19 °C ##### Variables * diet and temperature #### File: Y28℃.txt **Description:** *Ephestia elutella *was reared with  tobacco leaves under 28 °C ##### Variables * diet and temperature #### File: Y25℃.txt **Description:** *Ephestia elutella *was reared with  tobacco leaves under 25 °C ##### Variables * diet and temperature #### File: Y31.txt **Description:** *Ephestia elutella *was reared with  tobacco leaves under 31 °C ##### Variables * diet and temperature ## Code/software Raw data were collected and analyzed based on an age-stage, two-sex life table (Chi & Liu, 1985; Chi, 1988; Chi et al., 2020). TWOSEX-MSChart (Chi, 2021a) was used to calculate the mean development time, mortality rate, pre-oviposition, total pre-oviposition, fecundity, longevity, and population parameters of *E. elutella*. A paired bootstrap test was used to detect statistical differences among the population parameters of *E. elutella* fed different diets and subjected to different temperatures. Standard errors (SE) were estimated using a bootstrap technique with 100,000 resamples (Akca et al., 2015; Ou et al., 2023). A two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was carried out to analyze the effects of temperature and diet on the developmental time, pre-pupal (egg to 5th instar larva) survival rate, and fecundity of *E. elutella*, as well as their interactions, using IBM SPSS Version 27 (IBM, USA). Graphs were created with SigmaPlot Version 14.0. The *E. elutella* populations across ten treatments were projected using the TIMING-MSChart (Chi, 2021b), with 10 eggs as the starting number for each treatment (Chi, 1990). Each population was projected over a period of 120 days under the assumption that they experienced no biotic or abiotic effects.