Mathematical modelling of population dynamics of khapra beetle (Trogoderma granarium)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Trogoderma granarium Everts (Coleoptera: Dermestidae), generally known as the khapra beetle, is found in the hot and dry regions of North Africa, the Middle East, and India. It is not established elsewhere and is classified as a quarantine pest in Canada and several other countries. It is one of the economically important quarantine pests that mainly feeds on food grain and proteinaceous materials. Its total lifespan lasts approximately 40 to 45 d under favourable environmental conditions. Extreme temperatures, high RH, high larval densities, or low food quality can induce a larval diapause, where the insect can survive for up to a few years, occasionally feeding and molting. The diapausing larvae are resistant to heat, cold, and insecticides, that aids in surviving the adverse conditions. Ecological modelling is a helpful tool to study the population dynamics of biological systems. The objective of this study was to develop mathematical models to calculate the survival and development of the khapra beetle under different environmental conditions such as temperature, RH, and food quality. The developed models were used to estimate the development and survival of the khapra beetle under Canadian grain storage conditions. The factors affecting the development and mortality of the khapra beetle were reviewed, and appropriate assumptions were made for developing the mathematical equations using the Physi-Biological age method. This method is based on temperature-driven development rate, and factors such as RH and food quality were considered as multipliers. Mathematical equations were developed to calculate the development and mortality of adults, eggs, larvae, pupae, and oviposition and diapause under different environmental conditions. Algorithms were developed to simulate the population dynamics for each day and coded in C++. The developed models were validated against the literature data and evaluated using linear regression, R2 and MSE. Population dynamics were simulated under Canadian grain storage conditions, and it was found that the diapausing larvae survived the extremely cold conditions found in Canadian grain. In contrast, insects in other stages did not survive. The surviving larvae developed to pupae and adults, and females began laying eggs once the temperature became warmer in the grain bins.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".