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Medical, Urban, and Veterinary Entomology

Student Competition 10-Minute Paper

Grad MUVE: Diptera Biology and Control On-Demand Presentations

Human postmortem toxicological impacts on blow fly larval diversity and length

On-Demand
Student Competition On-Demand
Laboratory studies in entomotoxicology have demonstrated the presence and impact of certain drugs on different blow fly species; however, these experiments are lack the complexity of a field environment and have not been confirmed with human individuals. This study aims to examine the impact of various pharmaceutical agents on the size and diversity of larval blow flies collected from human remains at the Anthropology Research Facility (ARF) at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. From February 2019  to August 2021, N = 22 human donors with known antemortem medical information, no outward trauma, and viable blood serum were placed on the ground surface at the ARF. Immature blow flies were collected when present through active decomposition for all individuals for entomological and toxicological (via UHPLC-HRMS) analyses. A total of 153 drugs were detected from the 22 individuals. Beta diversity of larval blow flies was moderately high among donors (β = 0.502), with an overall species richness of S = 7 and Simpson diversity of D=3.94. Donors with anticonvulsants present (N=13, 76.5%) exhibited significantly lower Simpson diversity compared to other donors (P =0.037). Results indicate that the presence of these drugs influenced larval length (P < 0.001), dependent on species and drug class. No other drugs, disease conditions, intrinsic, or extrinsic variables significantly impacted the diversity or length of blow fly larvae collected from the donors in this study. Our findings suggest that decedent toxicology may need to be considered when using entomology approaches in forensic situations.