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• Jiří Skuhrovec: Curriculum vitae
• Current Projects
  • Host specificity of insect herbivores
  • Insect Developmental Database
  • Effect of agricultural managements on biodiversity of insect
  • Biology of pest in agriculture land
  • Taxonomy and phylogeny of Hyperini
  • Taxonomy and phylogeny of weevils
  • Larval morphology of weevils
    • Morphology and biology of immatures stages of genus Lixus, and using of larval characters for reconstructing phylogeny
  • Digital Weevil Determination projects
  • Biodiversity of weevils
• Publications
  • Published scientific papers
  • Chapters in books
  • Applicable results
  • Popularization papers
  • Abstracts of organized conferences, and official proposals
  • Oral presentations
  • Posters
  • Theses
• Useful web links
• Host specificity of pre-dispersal seed predators
  • Studied Plants
    • Arctium
    • Carduus
    • Carlina
    • Centaurea
    • Cirsium
    • Cyanus
    • Echinops sphaerocephalus
    • Onopordum acanthium
    • Serratula tinctoria
  • Pre-dispersal predators
    • Curculionidae
    • Tephritidae
      • Myopitinae
      • Tephritinae
      • Terelliinae

Effect of temperature and photoperiod on the development

The relationship between temperatures and rate of various life processes is described by thermal constants. Although thermal relationship for development is known for more than 1000 insect species, obtaining of this data is important because it brings us new piece of knowledge of biology of studied organism. Photoperiod also frequently affects duration of insect development. These could bring us closer to understanding of biodiversity. This is particularly important in agricultural pests and invasive organisms where the data may be used for prognosis of their occurrence.

Recently solved subtopics:

IDD – Insect Developmental Database; and the studies based on these data

(in cooperation with Vojtěch Jarošík, Alois Honěk, Petr Pyšek and Marc Kennis)

Two values of thermal requirements, the lower developmental threshold (LDT), and the sum of effective temperatures (SET are used in phenology models to predict time at which the development of individual stages of a species will be completed. To assist in the rapid development of phenology models, we merged a previously published database of thermal requirements for insects, gathered by online search in CAB Abstracts, with independently collected data for insects and mites from original studies. The merged database comprises developmental times at various constant temperatures on 1,054 insect and mite species, many of them in several populations, mostly pests and their natural enemies, from all over the world. We show that closely related species share similar thermal requirements and therefore, for a species with unknown thermal requirements, the value of LDT and SET of its most related species from the database can be used (Abstract from Jarošík et al. 2011). IDD is still updated.

Effect of temperature and photoperiod on the development of immature stages of the weevils and its usability for applied entomology

The development of immature stages of the weevils depend strongly on temperature and photoperiod. Determination of thermal constants is basal for studying insect development (see my topic Biology of pest in agriculture land). Thermal constants enable prediction of insect development in the open and thus facililate timing of pest control, classical as well as biological. Another “optimum” may be considered a temperature with minimum mortality of immature stages. Temperature optimum may differ from this “mortality optimum”, although thier equivalence is frequently assumed. Only few authors determined temperature maximum of immature stages. I am currently focused mainly on accumulating LDT and SET of the weevils

Updated: October 18, 2012

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