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ViewAttendees 9

P-IE

Student Competition 10-Minute Paper

Grad 10-min: P-IE, Behavioral Ecology 2

Using simulation to explore the phenological consequences of behavioral thermoregulation in forensically relevant blow fly species

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Student Competition On-Demand
Thermoregulatory behavior has been observed in many insect species. As ectotherms, insects rely on environmental conditions to moderate their thermal experience. The use of accumulated degree day models is ubiquitous and even crucial in entomologically related fields such as agriculture, epidemiology, and forensics. These models take different forms, but each is used to inform professionals seeking to optimize best practices in their respective fields. However, the phenological consequences of behavioral thermoregulation are rarely accounted for when using accumulated degree day models to estimate development rates.  The consequences this omission vary in magnitude, but our group sought to understand how behavioral thermoregulation affects the rate of degree day accumulation in forensically relevant blow fly species because with behavioral thermoregulation comes the possibility of thermal exploitation; that is, the ability to maximize development by exploiting thermal heterogeneity on the accessible landscape. Blow fly larvae are sometimes used in the course of forensic investigations to estimate the minimum post-mortem interval (PMI), or the time from when human remains were first deposited at a site to the time of discovery. The consequences of behavioral thermoregulation on development are unknown. Simulation models were created to explore the outcomes of different scenarios involving varying degrees of thermal landscape heterogeneity and thermoregulatory ability.