The microbiology, pH, and oxidation reduction potential of larval masses in decomposing carcasses on Oahu, Hawaii

Junkins, Emily N.; Speck, Mark; Carter, David

doi:10.1016/j.jflm.2019.08.001

Cited by 19 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…Specifically, brain and spleen samples demonstrated significant increases in relative abundances of Clostridiales, as well as increases observed in heart, liver, and prostate tissues. These results, with the exception of uterus, at various times of death confirmed the Postmortem Clostridium Effect (PCE) which points to the observation of Clostridia in internal organ tissues (Javan et al, 2017;Pechal et al, 2018;Burcham et al, 2019;Junkins et al, 2019). Further, we also identify a number of cadaver-specific traits (sex, PMI, BMI, and cause of death) to be associated with microbial alpha and beta diversity, as well as bacterial taxa that are differentially associated with these traits.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Effects of Extended Postmortem Interval on Microbial Communities in Organs of the Human Cadaver

et al. 2020

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Human thanatomicrobiota studies have shown that microorganisms inhabit and proliferate externally and internally throughout the body and are the primary mediators of putrefaction after death. Yet little is known about the source and diversity of the thanatomicrobiome or the underlying factors leading to delayed decomposition exhibited by reproductive organs. The use of the V4 hypervariable region of bacterial 16S rRNA gene sequences for taxonomic classification (“barcoding”) and phylogenetic analyses of human postmortem microbiota has recently emerged as a possible tool in forensic microbiology. The goal of this study was to apply a 16S rRNA barcoding approach to investigate variation among different organs, as well as the extent to which microbial associations among different body organs in human cadavers can be used to predict forensically important determinations, such as cause and time of death. We assessed microbiota of organ tissues including brain, heart, liver, spleen, prostate, and uterus collected at autopsy from criminal casework of 40 Italian cadavers with times of death ranging from 24 to 432 h. Both the uterus and prostate had a significantly higher alpha diversity compared to other anatomical sites, and exhibited a significantly different microbial community composition from non-reproductive organs, which we found to be dominated by the bacterial orders MLE1-12, Saprospirales, and Burkholderiales. In contrast, reproductive organs were dominated by Clostridiales, Lactobacillales, and showed a marked decrease in relative abundance of MLE1-12. These results provide insight into the observation that the uterus and prostate are the last internal organs to decay during human decomposition. We conclude that distinct community profiles of reproductive versus non-reproductive organs may help guide the application of forensic microbiology tools to investigations of human cadavers.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Effects of Extended Postmortem Interval on Microbial Communities in Organs of the Human Cadaver

et al. 2020

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“…Dibner et al (2019) showed similar results, and noted that later in decomposition anaerobic bacteria dominated the microbial communities. Junkins et al (2019) showed that the microbe community structure was heavily influenced by oxidation–reduction potential, which, in turn, was altered by the maggot mass. With further studies, it is possible that microbiota collected from swabs of maggot masses could be used to establish a preliminary PMI.…”

Section: Forensic Entomological Literature In the Pacific Regionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A review of Forensic Entomology in the Pacific United States

Meeds

Parrott

2021

WIREs Forensic Science

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The field of forensic entomology has grown exponentially within the last 50 years. While research in this discipline is conducted globally, the United States in particular has produced a significant amount of work relevant to forensic entomology. The Pacific region of the United States, characterized to include Hawai'i, Idaho, Oregon, Washington and the islands of American Samoa, Guam, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, has produced a broad array of such studies. Works of interest include surveys of forensically important insects, studies on carrion decomposition and insect succession, studies on the developmental rate of sarcosaprophagous insects, molecular studies to detect differences between geographically distant populations of the same species, studies on the microbial makeup of carrion and carrion‐feeding insects, entomotoxicological research, decomposition communities in aquatic environments, and case reports detailing insects recovered from death investigations as well as myiasis of livestock and humans. This review will outline research that originates from each of the aforementioned regions and review the results, while identifying knowledge gaps, and providing recommended areas of improvement to further increase diversity of forensic entomology research in the Pacific region. This article is categorized under: Forensic Anthropology > Time Since Death Estimation Forensic Biology > Forensic Entomology

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“…organisms move to reach a new food source). Regarding maggot masses, larvae can shape their biotic environments (microbiota) and modify local abiotic conditions (temperature and food texture), thus performing niche construction by perturbation [28]. Maggots also move within their environment to aggregate and regulate their temperature, which constitutes niche construction by relocation [12,29].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aggregation in an heterospecific population of blowfly larvae: social behaviour is impacted by species-specific thermal requirements and settlement order

Charabidzé

Aubernon

2023

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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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 a first experiment, larvae of two species with different thermal requirements were deposited simultaneously on a thermal gradient. This resulted in the formation of two monospecific groups, each located at the species-specific thermal preferendum. However, when Calliphora vomitoria (Linnaeus) larvae were placed first, the later arriving Lucilia sericata (Meigen) larvae attracted the whole group to its own thermal preferendum. In the reverse experiment, half of the replicates resulted in single dense heterospecific groups observed at temperatures ranging from C. vomitoria to L. sericata preferendum. The other half of the replicates resulted in loose groups spread out on the thermal gradient. These results highlight the emergence of collective decisions ranging from thermal optimization to heterospecific aggregation at suboptimal temperatures. They demonstrate that species settlement order strongly affects self-organization processes and mixed-species group formation. We conclude that thermal optimization and heterospecific niche construction are two developmental strategies of carrion fly larvae. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Mixed-species groups and aggregations: shaping ecological and behavioural patterns and processes’.

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The microbiology, pH, and oxidation reduction potential of larval masses in decomposing carcasses on Oahu, Hawaii

Cited by 19 publications

References 55 publications

Effects of Extended Postmortem Interval on Microbial Communities in Organs of the Human Cadaver

Effects of Extended Postmortem Interval on Microbial Communities in Organs of the Human Cadaver

A review of Forensic Entomology in the Pacific United States

Aggregation in an heterospecific population of blowfly larvae: social behaviour is impacted by species-specific thermal requirements and settlement order

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