Investigation into using entomology to improve methods of anthropological post-mortem interval estimation

At the most basic level decomposition is the reduction of complex molecules into nutrient sources for the larger ecological system. The goals of this dissertations are to examine how blowfly physiology and activity are impacted by end-of-life toxicology, ecological factors (e.g., scavenging), and how in turn these affects both entomological and anthropological methods of postmortem interval (PMI) estimations. Due to the expansive range of end-of-life toxicology, this work focuses specifically on morphine, lorazepam, and their secondary metabolites. A combination of laboratory and field simulation experiments tests the biological parameters of the black blowfly, Phormia regina, Meigen (Diptera: Calliphoridae) to examine 1) developmental duration of each life stage, 2) size and 3) survivorship of P. regina during each developmental stage. In addition, field observations of 53 human donors at the Anthropology Research Facility (ARF) at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville were recorded to examine how scavenging activity influences oviposition location of blow flies. Hierarchal linear models were designed to predict PMI utilizing longitudinal entomology variables from 22 human donors in combination with Total Body Scores (TBS) (Megyesi et al., 2005) with the goal of determining the minimal variables necessary for improved accuracy. This work elucidates the complex relationship between postmortem toxicology, insect physiology and morphological decomposition. This dissertation generated a dataset for Phormia regina that forensic entomologists can utilize in death investigation with known toxicology and provides a foundation for including parsimonious ecological factors in morphological PMI estimations.