High larval densities and high temperatures lead to a stronger immune response in the black soldier fly

Abstract

Organisms are expected to invest more in their immune function when the risk of disease infection is high. However, induction of a robust immune response is costly and may not be achievable in suboptimal environments. High conspecific density could simultaneously imply high infection risk and a suboptimal environment for many insect species. We focus on the economically important dipteran species (black soldier fly, BSF) that represents the insect order that has been ignored in previous research on density effects on immunity. The experimental part of the study was carried out to evaluate the effect of larval density (three density treatments: 1, 5 and 10 larvae/cm2) and temperature (three thermal treatments: 23, 27 and 30 °C) on the immune function of BSF larvae. The larvae that were reared at high compared to low larval densities and at higher than lower temperatures had significantly higher activity of phenoloxidase, an enzyme that plays an essential role in insect immune function. Sex did not have a significant effect on phenoloxidase activity and prepupal mass, pupal mass and adult mass were not affected by the levels of phenoloxidase activity of fifth instar larvae. In addition, we give an overview of larval density effects on insect immunity and show that density-dependent prophylaxis (stronger immune response in high larval density environments) is indeed common in the results of published case studies. However, cases with no correlation between density and immunity traits were as frequent. Moreover, in more than half of the studies, qualitatively different within-species patterns in different immunity traits were observed. We conclude that BSF larvae exhibit density-dependent prophylaxis, and larvae invest more into their immune system at high larval densities and temperatures than they do at low larval densities and temperatures.