1964 Volume 8 Issue 3 Pages 218-221
In an effort to develop the suitable synthetic food medium for rearing the rice stem borer for successive generations, it was found that female insects of the borer require ascorbic acid in their larval food.
In this paper, the relation between the electrophoretic pattern of haemolymph protein of female larvae and their fecundity is examined, in connection with nutritional role of ascorbic acid in their food.
The results obtained were summarised as follows:
1. If the larvae were fed to the diets lacking in ascorbic acid, the concentration of all the fractions of the haemolymph protein reduced remarkably as compared with that of normal larvae.
2. The concentration of a globulin fraction moving to anode side, increased with increase of ascorbic acid level in the diets up until 100mg per 100g of diet.
3. It is supposed that the inspection of protein fractions in haemolymph by means of an electrophoresis is a useful method for estimating physiological weakness of insects.
