INTERPOPULATION DIFFERENCES IN THE COLDHARDINESS OF DELIA RADICUM (DIPTERA: ANTHOMYIIDAE)

Abstract

The cabbage root maggot, Delia radicum (L.), was introduced to North America in the mid-1800s, likely from northwestern Europe, and probably reached Quebec and British Columbia before 1885 and Manitoba by 1922. The mean temperature of crystallization (Tc) for overwintering pupae was −22.8 ± 1.2 °C for the St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, population and −23.8 ± 0.7 °C for the Vancouver, British Columbia, population. The mean Tc for these two populations and for Winnipeg, Manitoba (−24.4 °C), Ascot, England (−22.8 °C), Tallinn, Estonia (−25.2 °C), and St. Petersburg, Russia (ca. −20 °C), did not show any relation to mean January temperatures. These locations represent both temperate oceanic and temperate continental climates and a range of mean January temperatures from +4.6 to −17.7 °C. Survival of puparia from St-Jean-sur-Richelieu exposed to nonfreezing temperatures decreased as temperature decreased and exposure time lengthened. The parameters for the regression equations describing this relationship were similar to those describing the Winnipeg population, and both were more coldhardy than the Ascot population. The upper limit of the cold injury zone (ULCIZ) for the St-Jean-sur-Richelieu population was −12.7 °C and the lower limit of this zone (LLCIZ) was −27.6 °C. Coldhardy populations from temperate continental climates (St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Winnipeg) showed a rate of decrease in survival with increased cold stress (lower temperature, longer exposure) within the cold injury zone which was much slower than in the less coldhardy population (Ascot). Thus, some individuals from the coldhardy populations would be physiologically capable of surviving exposure to temperatures below Tc, whereas in the Ascot population nonfreezing injury would kill all the overwintering puparia at a temperature (−19.6 °C) well above Tc (−22.8 °C). The observed survival of puparia from Vancouver, following various nonfreezing exposures, resembled more closely the calculated survival for these exposures when the equations describing the Ascot population were used than when the equations for Winnipeg or St-Jean-sur-Richelieu were used. The Ascot and Vancouver populations, both from temperate oceanic climates, are less coldhardy than the populations from St-Jean-sur-Richelieu and Winnipeg (temperate continental climates). The founder populations of D. radicum in North America, which probably originated in the temperate oceanic climates of northwestern Europe, have adapted to the colder temperate continental climates by increasing their ability to survive longer exposures to all temperatures within the cold injury zone and not by lowering Tc. Therefore, selection for coldhardiness in D. radicum must have operated on structures, processes, or physiological-biochemical mechanisms that help the organism to avoid or repair nonfreezing cold injury but not on those that determine Tc.