Timing the Seasonal Cycles of Insects: The Emergence of Rhagoletis Pomonella1

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Abstract
A continuation of a previous paper [see B. A. 19(2): entry 3781], this study is based upon records of the emergence of 132,129 flies during a period of 11 yrs. The emergence followed a characteristic seasonal pattern, which takes the form of a sigmoid curve. The curve bears an interesting resemblance to the toxicity curve, resulting from individual variations in the response of the insects to environmental factors, as well as variations in exposure of the individuals to such factors as temp. and moisture. Highly significant correlation was found between emergence and the accumulated daily mean temps. Corre-lation between emergence and accumulated rainfall de-creased as the emergence advanced from 0.1% to 90%. An inverse correlation between emergence and the date of petal-fall increased as emergence advanced. By utilizing the correlations with temp., rainfall, and date of petal-fall, the emergence of given % levels was estimated within narrow time limits.

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