Modeling Thermal Death in the Mexican Fruit Fly (Diptera: Tephritidae)

Abstract

A large set of mortality data for the Mexican fruit fly, Anastrepha ludens (Loew), from induced thermal stress was fit to 4 mathematical models that are used to estimate thermal death points for quarantine level security. Two of the models, the probit and kinetic formulas, estimated death point intercepts in close agreement at the tail ends of survivorship curves. Based on the criteria of chi-square values, coefficients of determination, and confidence limits, the kinetic model had the best fit to the data. The complementary log-log model produced disparately lower death point intercepts with wider confidence limits compared with the other 3 models with the same data set.