A new study, published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution carried out by researchers from the Universities of Bristol, Oxford, Notre Dame in the US, and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, investigated the causes and consequences of these miscarriages (or spontaneous abortions) in tsetse flies. They asked how abortions affected the size and sex of the next offspring produced, and how factors such as the mother’s nutrition affect the frequency of miscarriages. 

The scientists found that early-stage abortions are initially prevalent in very young female tsetse flies and then gradually increase as tsetse females reach older ages. They did not find evidence that abortions are adaptive strategies, in other words, tsetse flies that had abortions did not go on to have larger offspring or more females. 

Findings from the study could feed into predictive modelling of tsetse population dynamics, which could ultimately help predict the spread of tsetse-borne diseases. 

Paper: English S et al. (2023). Investigating the unaccounted ones: insights on age-dependent reproductive loss in a viviparous fly. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.

Read the full University of Bristol news item