Growth rate mediates hidden developmental plasticity of female yellow dung fly reproductive morphology in response to environmental stressors.

Understanding how environmental variation influences even cryptic traits is important to clarify the roles of selection and developmental constraints in past evolutionary divergence and to predict future adaptation under environmental change. Female yellow dung flies (Scathophaga stercoraria) typically have three sperm storage compartments (3S), but occasionally four (4S). More spermathecae are thought to be a female adaptation facilitating sperm sorting after mating, but the phenotype is very rare in nature.

A field test of the effect of spiked ivermectin concentrations on the biodiversity of coprophagous dung insects in Switzerland.

Veterinary medical product residues can cause severe damage in the dung ecosystem. Depending on the manner of application and the time after treatment, the excreted concentration of a given pharmaceutical varies. The popular anthelmintic drug ivermectin can be applied to livestock in several different ways and is fecally excreted over a period of days to months after application.

How to test nontarget effects of veterinary pharmaceutical residues in livestock dung in the field.

To register veterinary medicinal products (VMPs) as parasiticides on pastured animals, legislation in the European Union requires an environmental risk assessment to test the potential nontarget effects of fecal residues on dung-dwelling organisms. Products with adverse effects in single-species laboratory tests require further, higher-tier testing to assess the extent of these effects on entire communities of dung-dwelling organisms under more realistic field or semifield conditions. Currently, there are no documents specifically written to assist researchers in conducting higher-tier tests or to assist regulators in interpreting the results of such tests in an appropriate context.

Lethal and sublethal toxic effects of a test chemical (ivermectin) on the yellow dung fly (Scathophaga stercoraria) based on a standardized international ring test.

A standardized bioassay using the yellow dung fly, Scathophaga stercoraria L. (Diptera: Scathophagidae), was developed to test the lethal and sublethal toxicity of parasiticide residues in livestock dung. The repeatability of the bioassay was assessed for the parasiticide ivermectin in 13 tests performed by seven laboratories in Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Canada.