From lab to nature: A novel temperature-dependent development model incorporating thermal evolution and plasticity

Development, a key biological process, is typically measured using laboratory populations under constant temperatures. However, these measurements may differ from natural reality due to the effects of rapid evolution and unnatural constant regimes, which have not been considered in the developmental models. Here, we measured the developmental time of laboratory and field populations of a global aphid pest at 9 constant and 9 fluctuating temperatures and quantified these two effects, constructed a new developmental model incorporating these two processes, and validated and applied the new model in 3 representative fields. We found that the evolutionary effect was more pronounced under constant than under fluctuating regimes. Ignoring evolutionary and thermal plasticity effects may overestimate the number of annual generations. Our new model accurately predicted development rate and annual generations using commonly available daily mean temperatures, and provided a template for the temperature-dependent developmental model incorporating evolutionary and plasticity effects for ectotherms.