Some Temperature Coefficients for Insect Oviposition

Abstract

Studies of the effect of temperature have shown that insect oviposition is limited by definite temperature extremes within which the rate of egg laying is accelerated to a maximum and then is retarded by increasingly higher temperatures. Other work has shown that the acceleration of different biological processes may vary in proportion to the temperature or according to more complex relationships. For this reason a quantitative analysis of the relative effect of different temperatures is generally essential in the proper measurement and interpretation of temperature as an environmental factor and also has an important relation to different theories on the nature of the effect of temperature on physiological processes. Since the effect of the same number of degrees difference in temperature may vary in different portions of the temperature gradient, the relations must ordinarily be determined by experimental studies of the relative influence of different intensities or controlled degrees of temperature. The fact that different temperatures may exercise a disproportionate effect shows that serious limitations may be involved in the analysis of variable temperature data in terms of mean temperatures. Curvilinear relations may be obscured and a spurious appearance of linearity may be produced, since in the use of mean temperatures in correlation there is a tacit assumption that temperatures above and below the mean are proportional in effect, as would be expressed by a straight-line graph.