Modeling temperature‐dependent development rate and phenology in insects: review of major developments, challenges, and future directions

Abstract

The study of insect responses to temperature has a long tradition in science, starting from Réaumur's work on caterpillars in the 18th century. In 1932, Ernst Janisch wrote: ‘The problem is (and will be more and more in the future) one of the most important ones in entomology […]’. Almost 90 years after this paper, its prediction still holds true, with a sustained interest of the scientific community for the study of insect responses to temperature, especially in the context of climate change. We present a review of the major developments in the field of insect development responses to temperature and analyze the growing importance of modeling approaches in the literature using a bibliographic analysis. We discuss recent advances and future directions for phenology‐modeling based on temperature‐dependent development rate. Finally, we highlight the need for a change of paradigm toward a system‐based approach in order to overcome current challenges and to predict insect phenology more accurately, with direct implications in agriculture, conservation biology, and epidemiology.

Heat knockdown resistance and chill‐coma recovery as correlated responses to selection on mating success at high temperature in Drosophila buzzatii

“…High temperature can affect the reproduction, abundance, and distribution of species in contemporaneous wild environments under heat stress (Franks & Hoffmann, ; Hoffmann & Sgrò, ). In addition, the ability of individuals to respond to adverse environmental conditions such as thermal stress is highly relevant for adaptation to climate changes including global warming (Borda, Sambucetti, Gomez, & Norry, ; Deutsch et al, ; Franks & Hoffmann, ; Huey et al, ; Kellermann, Heerwaarden, Sgrò, & Hoffmann, ; Kellermann et al., ; Kingsolver et al, ; Rebaudo & Rabbi, ; van Heerwaarden, Kellermann, & Sgrò, ). Diverse fitness‐related traits, including mating success at stressing temperatures, can be direct phenotypic targets of selection for thermal adaptation (Hoffmann, Sørensen, & Loeschcke, ; Kellermann et al, ; Sambucetti & Norry, ).…”

Occurrence and predictive utility of isochronal, equiproportional, and other types of development among arthropods

“…Survival through early life stages, growth rates of individuals to reproductive maturity or legal size for fisheries, inter-population connectivity, and seasonal patterns of abundance are all impacted by the length of time required to complete the immature phases (Huntley and López, 1992; Miller et al, 1998; Anger, 2001; Easterbrook et al, 2003; Reitzel et al, 2004; Pineda and Reyns, 2018). Development time of arthropods is strongly impacted by environmental temperature, with warmer conditions generally resulting in shorter development times within a species’ tolerance limits (Nietschke et al, 2007; Shi et al, 2012; Rebaudo and Rabhi, 2018). There is therefore much interest and need to quantify the relationships between temperature and development time of immature arthropod life stages.…”

“…An analysis of covariance (ANCOVA, either linear or nonlinear), with the continuous variable temperature as ‘covariate’ and larval stage as a categorical factor may be a better general approach, although the typical interpretation of an ANCOVA focuses on the categorical factor and ignores functional relationships between the covariate or covariate*factor interaction and dependent variable. An ANCOVA approach is thus not ideal since functional quantitative relationships between temperature and developmental characteristics of arthropods are often quite important (e.g., Shi et al 2012; Quinn, 2017; Shi et al 2017a, b, c; Rebaudo and Rabhi, 2018).…”

“…VPD) conditions. In addition, many previous studies of arthropod development have used both linear and nonlinear models to fit development time or rate data (e.g., Angilletta, 2006; Quinn 2017; Shi et al 2017a, b, c; Rebaudo and Rabhi, 2018). Therefore, in the present study alternative VPD models to ICD and EPD were used, in which the developmental proportion for each stage could vary among stages as in EPD, but also could vary for the same stage as a linear or nonlinear (quadratic) function of rearing temperature.…”

Genetic variation for egg‐to‐adult survival in Drosophila melanogaster in a set of recombinant inbred lines reared under heat stress in a natural thermal environment

“…The ability to survive from larvae to adulthood is an important fitness component, especially under severe environmental conditions, as in the case of elevated temperature in a scenario of global warming (Kingsolver et al., ; Franks & Hoffmann, ; Huey et al., ; Rebaudo & Rabbi, ). Adaptation to thermally stressing environments is possible if thermotolerance phenotypes are genetically variable in populations in all stages of the life cycle (Hoffmann et al., ; Hoffmann & Willi, ; Levy et al., ; Lommen et al., ).…”