The Individual Energy Budget Of The Dynamic Young Tussock Moth

Energy flow is one of the inherent and common function characteristics of ecosystems. As an important composition in ecosystem, the study of ecological energy for insect has received great concern. Though the status and functions of insect of forest has been emphasized a lot in material circulation and energy flow of its ecosystem in theory, but there has a few studied instance at present, and there has less researches about revenue and expenditure for individuals of forestry insect. So we measured the white elm tussock moth, an important poplar leaf-eating pest of the Northwest region, studied the energy flows and revenue and expenditure law systematically in its whole life history. The results is as the follows:The energy that keeping its whole life and reproductive activities is the ingestion energy in the larva period, with the increase of the ages, the ingestion value increases with an index form basically. The most ingestion values is absorbed in the last two ages, account for more than 3/4 in all ingestion energy. Excrement value( FU) and the production value( P) present the similar changes oThe oxygen consumption of respiration increases with the larva's growth and the rise of the body weight and reaches the highest level at the 5th age. The metabolic rate of respiration decreases gradually with the increases of the ages in the larva period. Change of metabolic rates of pupa follows the classic "U"-shaped pattern. The metabolic rates of the adults have similar variation tendencies, but the rate of the male is higher obviously than the rate of female. The respiration quotient of its whole life history was measured, the result shows that its average respiration quotient is 0.89 in the larva period, it indicates that the energy material of period of larva is the carbohydrate mainly, The respiration quotient average is about 0.75 in pupa, adults and ovum stadiums. It means that fat is the mainly energy source in the three stadiums of white elm tussock moth.When the larva grows, there is about a half of the ingested energy be discharged with its excrement, and about 24.61% is used for keeping the body's growth and energy store, 22.73% is used for keeping worm's body life activity and is consumed through respiration. In addition, 0.95% flows into external environment in form of exuvia. The pupa has comparatively simpler energy consumption in its period. About 60% is imported into the adults, a few of it (4%) is taken off with the pupa's shell. The consumption of energy of the adults mainly include female moths: respiration (32.09%), reproduction (41.98%) and internal energy of the body of adults (25.47%); male moths: respiration (65.18%), energy content of the male corpses (31.73 %).The energy content of the sample be measured and the results as follows: Worm's body organizes > exuvia (pupa's shell) > fodder(the poplar blade) > the excrement. The energy content of the worm's body are different at different development stages, the adults >the pupa >the ovum>the larvae. The energy of the adult's corpse lies between the ovum and larva.At the larva stage, with the development of the larva and the increase of ages, its assimilation efficiency (A/I) reduces but production efficiency (P/I) and the pure production efficiency (P/A) rise gradually. The phenomenon shows that the larvae of smaller ages have higher assimilation efficiency and consumes more energy in the course of life activities. The elder larva have weaker activities, it can use more energy in its growth and energy store.