Simulation of Adult Emergence for the Alfalfa Blotch Leafminer (Diptera: Agromyzidae): Interaction of Environmental Temperature and Individual Developmental Rate Variation 1

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Abstract
The interaction of developmental-rate variation for pupae with soil temperature variation in the pupal environment was analyzed through computer simulations of cumulative adult emergence patterns for the alfalfa blotch leafminer, Agromyza frontella (Rondani). Observed emergence patterns were compared with simulated ones based on four different conceptual models of the pupal life system. The models included sequential combinations of the two sources of variation. Overall, 41.8% of the 67 simulated patterns were valid representations of the 17 different observed patterns for 2 years and three sites in central New York. The models, including developmental and environmental variation, developmental variation alone, environmental variation alone (in space and with depth), and environmental variation with depth alone, respectively, accounted for 93.4, 90.0, 87.5, and 80.1 % of the variance in the observed patterns. For pest management purposes, the model that utilized developmental variation was an equally accurate but lower-cost alternative to the models that depended on measurements of environmental temperature variation.