Damien Charabidze

• Ph.D. | HDR
• Lecturer at Univ Lille

Des vies après la mort L’idée fascine autant qu’elle dégoûte : après la mort, le corps devient grouillant d’une autre forme de vie, peuplé d’asticots voraces, de guêpes parasites et de scarabées prédateurs. Toutes ces espèces partagent un but : profiter le plus vite possible de cette ressource, s’y développer et s’y multiplier autant que possible....

Larvae of several blowfly species grow on carcasses and actively aggregate together. They face harsh developmental conditions resulting in a strong pressure to reduce development time: this is achieved either through thermoregulation or aggregation. We investigate how these two developmental strategies are modulated within heterospecific groups. In...

Chemical signals are widespread in insects, but those resulting in interspecific communication (i.e., synomones) remain understudied. Here, we analysed chemicals left on substrates by two species of blow fly larvae, Lucilia sericata (Meigen) and Calliphora vomitoria (Linneaus) (Diptera: Calliphoridae), which can aggregate together on carrion. Using...

Simple Summary Larvae of the larder beetle Dermestes maculatus (Coleoptera: Dermestidae, De Geer, 1774) resemble caterpillars but actually feed on dry tissues of dead animals, and sometimes on human corpses. To hide and metamorphose into adult beetles, these larvae dig deep tunnels called pupation chambers. These holes and pits are usually observed...

This study explored the trade‐offs between thermal regulation and aggregation, two key factors impacting blow fly (Diptera: Calliphoridae) larvae development. Recent works have demonstrated that necrophagous maggots engage in developmental niche construction, which provides adaptive benefits. First, each species has a preferential temperature, at w...

Childhood is an ontogenetic stage unique to the modern human life history pattern. It enables the still dependent infants to achieve an extended rapid brain growth, slow somatic maturation, while benefitting from provisioning, transitional feeding, and protection from other group members. This tipping point in the evolution of human ontogeny likely...

Several studies have highlighted the impact of environmental factors such as food type or larval density on the development of blowfly larvae. We investigated how changes in development speed (due to larval density and group composition) are divided among feeding and post-feeding stages. Even if these parameters impinge only on feeding larvae, they...

The Locard′s exchange principle (1930) holds that the perpetrator of a crime leaves traces behind that can later be sampled and used as forensic evidence [...]

Banquet of the Beasts A film by Daniela Pulverer and Boris Raim Documentary (52 Min.), BR/Arte https://www.marco-polo-film.de/en/movies/production/production/banquet-of-the-beasts/ What happens when an animal perishes in the depth of the forest? Who clears up the remains? Why aren’t we surrounded by carcasses? After all, death is a constant and u...

Carrion is a highly ephemeral and nutrient rich resource, characterized by extreme biotic and abiotic stressors. We hypothesized that specific constraints of the carrion ecosystem, and especially its nutrient richness, ephemerality, and competition with microbes, have promoted the evolution of social behaviors in necrophagous insects. We show that...

Collective decisions have been extensively studied in arthropods, but they remain poorly known in heterospecific groups. This study was designed to (1) assess the collective behaviours of blow fly larvae (Diptera: Calliphoridae) in groups varying in density and species composition, and (2) to relate them to the costs and benefits of aggregating on...

Carrion is a patchy, nutrient-rich and frequently bulky resource that hosts a complex community of competing organisms. Several insect species have specialized to use carrion for breeding, revealing a specific suite of behavioural adaptations. Larvae of carrion insects regularly aggregate while feeding, frequently forming spectacular larval masses....

Necrophagous blowflies (Diptera: Calliphoridae) such as Calliphora vicina , a cold‐tolerant species, and Lucilia sericata , a warm‐adapted species, are pioneer carrion‐breeder. Although these two species have different temperature preferences, larvae aggregate actively and often feed simultaneously on carrion. The hypothesis to be tested was that L...

The present study focuses on trade‐offs between the development rates and their life‐history traits of feeding larvae. Indeed, quick growth is considered to be vital for necrophagous insects such as larvae because they are part of a rapidly changing ecosystem and at the mercy of many predators. However, excessively quick growth can have a negative...

MK 81 GAR IVE 0043 (henceforward GAR IVE) is a juvenile early Homo represented by a fragment of mandible and a partial mixed dentition. It has been unearthed at Garba IV (Melka Kunture, Upper Awash, Ethiopia), in layer E, dated to ∼1.8 Ma. This is one of the very few juvenile fossils of Early Pleistocene age. It is also one of the not many hominin...

Heterospecific aggregations and foraging associations have been observed between different species, from apes to birds to insects. Using blowfly larvae, the present study investigated if developmental benefits are linked to heterospecific aggregations. For this objective, Calliphora vicina and Lucilia sericata larvae were raised from first instar t...

Heterospecific aggregations and foraging associations have been observed between different species, from apes to birds to insects. Such associations are hypothesized to result in a mutually beneficial relationship entailing benefits that are not apparent in conspecific groupings. Therefore, the objectives of the present study were to investigate 1)...

Measuring temperature is a key factor in forensic entomology. While noting factors to consider for a posteriori temperature estimation, many studies lack detailed methods or general rules allowing their integration into insect development-time calculations. This article proposes tools for determining the adequacy of weather station temperature data...

Necrophagous insects are mostly known through forensic entomology. Indeed, experimental data investigating the effect of temperature on larval development underlies post-mortem interval estimations. However, such developmental studies rarely considered the behavior of maggots. In contrast, previous results supposed that calliphoridae larvae use beh...

Les asticots, unis face à la mort 8 octobre 2018, 18:34 CEST Cet article est publié dans le cadre de la Fête de la Science 2018 dont The Conversation France est partenaire. Retrouvez tous les débats et les événements de votre région sur le site Fetedelascience.fr. Peut-être les avez-vous déjà vus, grouillant sur la carcasse d'un animal décédé : des...

The coexistence of competing species has been observed between different animals, from apes to birds to insects. Using blowfly larvae, we have shown mutual benefits within interspecific groups regarding developmental time, survival and size. We have also observed that such associations result in cooperation and benefits that cannot be achieved in i...

Necrophagous flies breeding on carcasses face high selection pressures and therefore provide interesting opportunities to study social adaptations. We postulated that gregariousness in necrophagous blow fly larvae is an adaptive response to the environmental constraints of fresh carcasses. Cooperation is indeed believed to be key to the global succ...

During larval stage, necrophagous Calliphoridae insects act gregariously. After aggregating en masse at feeding stage, they leave individually the carcass and disperse radially during post-feeding stage. Thereby, they crawl several centimeters to meters into soil or hide under obstacles in order to find an appropriate site to pupate, preventing the...

The present study analysed interspecific aggregations between larvae of three blowfly species (Calliphora vicina, C. vomitoria and Lucilia sericata) in order to test (i) if aggregation behaviour differs between species, (ii) if the benefits of aggregation outweigh the costs of competition and (iii) if estimations of the minimum post-mortem interval...

Necrophagous Calliphoridae breed in vertebrate carrion. Their larvae aggregate and form large masses of individuals. These aggregated larvae can reach adulthood faster than scattered larvae, increasing their chances of survival. Furthermore, the gathering of larvae of different species suggests possible interspecific aggregation vectors. In this co...

Press cover of our review entilted Use of necrophagous insects as evidence of cadaver relocation: myth or reality? https://peerj.com/manuscripts/17166/

The use of insects as indicators of post-mortem displacement is discussed in many texts, courses and TV shows, and several studies addressing this issue have been published. Although the concept is widely cited, it is poorly understood, and only a few forensic cases have successfully applied such a method. The use of necrophagous insects as evidenc...

The forensic entomology is the use of insects to date the death. The forensic expert assessment is based on the development of necrophagous insects which are growing on the cadaver, to calculate their age and then estimate the Post-Mortem Interval. This development depends on a number of parameters like temperature, species or behavior. The French...

Le comportement des larves nécrophages est marqué par le grégarisme. Cependant, la raison d'un tel comportement était peu connue. Cette étude a pour objectif de démontrer que le grégarisme bénéficie au développement larvaire de Lucilia sericata, et ce en améliorant l’assimilation du substrat, notamment par mutualisation des enzymes d’exodigestion....

This review offers the first synthesis of the research on mixed-species groupings of arthropods and highlights the behavioural and evolutionary questions raised by such behaviour. Mixed-species groups are commonly found in mammals and birds. Such groups are also observed in a large range of arthropod taxa independent of their level of sociality. Se...

The use of insects as indicators of postmortem displacement is discussed in many text, courses and TV shows, and several studies addressing this issue have been published. However, the concept is widely cited but poorly understood, and only a few forensic cases have successfully applied such a method. Surprisingly, this question has never be taken...

The use of insects as indicators of postmortem displacement is discussed in many text, courses and TV shows, and several studies addressing this issue have been published. However, the concept is widely cited but poorly understood, and only a few forensic cases have successfully applied such a method. Surprisingly, this question has never be taken...

The thermoregulation behavior of Lucilia sericata larvae (Diptera: Calliphoridae), a necrophagous species that feeds on vertebrate cadavers, was investigated. These larvae require high heat incomes to develop, and can elevate temperatures by forming large aggregates. We hypothesized that L. sericata larvae should continue to feed at temperatures up...

Due to the ephemeral nature of carcasses they grow on, necrophagous blowfly larvae should minimize the time spent on the cadaver. This could be achieved by moving to high-temperature areas. On that basis, we theorized that larvae placed in a heterogeneous thermal environment would move to the higher temperature that speed up their development. This...

Temperature registration and recording for forensic entomology. Lecture given at the IALM 2016 Conference - Eafe parallel session

ForenSeek software has been developed to facilitate forensic entomology sample analysis while increasing reliability. Age calculation of a larva is usually based on time required to reach a given stage of development. This method reverses through a timeline to determine the time of fly oviposition starting from a final observed state. For many ins...

To date, the study of collective behaviour has mainly focused on intraspecific situations: the collective decision-making of mixed-species groups involving interspecific aggregationtextendashsegregation has received little attention. Here, we show that, in both conspecific and heterospecific groups, the larvae of two species (Lucilia sericata and C...

Animal cadavers are colonized by a rich community of insects and forms complex local ecosystem. The purpose of this study was to characterize the relationships that may exist between Dermestes maculatus and other carrion-feeding insect species. Two questions were explored: (1) the interaction between Lucilia sericata and Dermestes maculatus and (2)...

We used seven baited boxes with different combinations of access holes and odor diffusion surfaces to study the arrival of 10 necrophagous flies. During laboratory experiments, 30 gravid Lucilia sericata females were kept in a chamber with one of the boxes. The box with the largest odor diffusion surface (99 cm 2) combined with the lowest accessibi...

Aggregation of necrophagous larvae has several benefits: the sharing of salivary enzymes (exodigestion), temperature regulation, protection from predators and parasites, etc., and is well developed in blow flies (Diptera: Calliphoridae). The present study focuses on the aggregation mechanism used by the necrophagous larvae of Lucilia sericata Meige...

Necrodes littoralis (Linnaeus, 1758) (Coleoptera: Silphidae), also known as the Bshore sexton beetle,^ is a common silphid beetle that visits and breeds on large vertebrate cadavers. This study describes, for the first time, the involvement of N. littoralis on human corpses based on a large dataset of 154 French forensic cases. Various parameters r...

Several parameters can delay the first arrival of flies on a corpse and the subsequent development of the larvae. This study focuses on the development of Lucilia sericata (Diptera: Calliphoridae) (Meigen, 1826) on household chemical-contaminated substrates. bleach, perfume, hydrochloric acid, caustic soda, insecticide, mosquito repellent, and gaso...

Blowfly (Diptera Calliphoridae) larvae are usually found on vertebrates cadavers in large masses of hundreds to thousands of individuals. One of the most impressive consequences of these aggregations is the elevation of temperature inside the aggregate. This local increase of temperature can be an efficient mechanism to reduce development time on c...

From 1994 to 2013, French forensic entomology laboratories investigated 1,093 cases. Larder beetles (Coleoptera: Dermestidae) were observed in 81 (7.5 %) of these cases. To describe and analyze these 81 cases, eight parameters were used: city, location (indoor or outdoor), decay stage (fresh, decay, or dry), dermestid species and instar (adults and...

In-vitro effects of household products on the larval development of Lucilia sericata (Diptera : Calliphoridae)

Vectors of aggregation are well known for some arthropod species, but not for many others. We aimed to describe larval aggregation (experiment 1) in the carrion fly, Lucilia sericata (Diptera: Calliphoridae), and to investigate the effect of food and conspecifics on larval behaviour (experiment 2). In experiment 1, 40 larvae were placed in a petri di...

ls répondent aux doux noms de Lucilia sericata, Ophyra capensis, Dermeste undalatus ; ou à ceux plus explicites de Thanatophilus rugosus ou Sarcophaga carnaria. Parce qu'ils se régalent des restes humains, les insectes nécrophages, dont font partie ces cinq espèces, sont utilisés depuis des siècles comme auxiliaires de la police scientifique. L'étu...

Les cadavres sont des écosystèmes fugaces où la vie explose. Une sorte de vie qui n'inspire à la plupart d'entre nous que le dégoût. Pourtant, s'ils sont parfois vecteurs d'infections graves, les insectes nécrophages sont aussi d'utiles "éboueurs" susceptibles de devenir aussi les précieux auxiliaires de la justice et, pour certains, de la médecine...

Necrophagous insects usually colonize cadavers a few times after death. For this reason, they are used by forensic entomologists to estimate a minimum post-mortem interval (PMI). However, the necrophagous insect populations continuously vary on different time scales. These variations are especially noticeable during winter month, when only a few fl...

Necrophagous insects and forensic entomology. The estimation of the time of death is one of the major issues when a body is discovered. For this purpose, forensic entomology use insects sampled on corpses to estimate a minimum post-mortem interval (PMImin) and the time of death. This field of forensic sciences and legal medicine thus needs detailed...

Necrophagous insects and forensic entomology. The estimation of the time of death is one of the major issues when a body is discovered. For this purpose, forensic entomology use insects sampled on corpses to estimate a minimum post-mortem interval (PMImin) and the time of death. This fi eld of forensic sciences and legal medicine thus needs detaile...

La décomposition d'un corps humain débute quelques minutes seulement après le décès. L'absence d'oxygène entraîne une acidification du sang, tandis que les enzymes cellulaires amorcent l'autolyse (la dégradation) des tissus. La rigidité cadavérique se forme dès trois à quatre heures après la mort, puis dis-paraît rapidement lorsque la putréfaction...

Lors de la découverte d'un corps, deux questions fondamentales se posent : quelle est la date du décès, et quelle en est la cause ? La réponse à ces questions est le plus souvent apportée par la médecine légale : l'examen minutieux du cadavre, et éventuellement son autopsie, vont permettre de préciser les circonstances du décès.

Numerous Calliphoridae species larvae are necrophageous and develop on animal cadavers. During the feeding stages, a strong gregarious behaviour leads to the formation of large larval masses, allowing larvae to share digestive fluids. Furthermore, a mass of larvae emits heat, resulting in a local increase of temperature. Differences greater than 20...

Aggregation vectors are well known for some arthropod species, but stayed unsolved for many others. This study aims to characterize the effect of different signals (e.g. chemical, tactile) on the gregarious behavior of carrion fly larvae (Lucilia sericata) (Diptera: Calliphoridae). For such experiments, the age of individuals and their satiety must...

The measure of the rectal temperature is one of the main post-mortem interval (PMI) estimation tool. After the death, the body temperature decreases until reaching the ambient temperature. This evolution is well known and governed by heat transfer laws. Several methods, as the Henssge's nomogram, use this thermal indicator to estimate the PMI. Howe...

Development times and survivorship of Lucilia sericata (Meigen, 1826) were measured for different constant temperatures. In addition, lower threshold (tL) and thermal constant (Kt) were estimated for a local population. The estimated development time calculated from mean or minimum development time induces a bias that may be reduced using a model o...

The most common task of a forensic entomologist is to determine an accurate minimum post-mortem interval (PMI) using necrophagous fly larvae found on carrion. More often, blowflies (Diptera: Calliphoridae) are the first insects to detect the cadaver and, if the circumstances are favourable, to leave eggs on the body. However, several studies reveal...