Necrophagous insects play an important role in the decomposition of vertebrate carrion in the environment. The well documented colonization, development and succession of blow flies (Diptera: Calliphoridae) on decomposing carcasses makes studying their communities relevant for use in forensic investigations to establish post-colonization intervals. during an investigation. The main objective of this research was to conduct a baseline survey of adult Calliphoridae communities among urban – rural landscape types in the Great Lakes region. It was hypothesized that Calliphoridae communities would vary in composition, diversity and distribution across multiple cities and between two landscape types (urban and rural) in Mid-Michigan. To test how adult blow fly distribution varied with changing landscape conditions in Mid-Michigan, sampling with baited jars and hanging traps were implemented over the summer months of June, July, and August in 2017. To determine how blow communities changed from an urban to rural landscape, seven cities were selected with site locations ranging from high intensity developed areas to cultivated crop fields. Over 97,000 individual flies were captured with a total of 11 Calliphoridae species identified. The adult Calliphoridae communities were primarily structured by landscape type and month of collection, with these two factors having an interactive effect as well. The two most abundant species, Phormia regina (Meigen) and Lucilia sericata (Meigen), cumulatively comprised 88.5% of the identified adult flies. These finding are important to provide a helpful taxonomic baseline of Calliphoridae species in the Great Lakes region that forensic scientists may potentially use in both future research and case work.
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