Kinetics of medfly mortality.

A series of theoretical analyses of mortality were performed on recent data for Mediterranean fruit flies (Ceratitus capitata). Best fit computations were performed using the Marquardt-Levenburg technique on: 1) the classic Gompertz model, 2) the Johnson-Mehl-Avrami (JMA) model from chemical kinetics theory, which is formally a Weibull model, and 3) a hyperexponential gamma distribution model that we developed to help explain the relative success of the JMA model when compared with the Gompertz model. It was found that both the JMA and gamma models deviated from the data by about an order of magnitude less than the Gompertz model for the first few mean fly lifetimes. We discuss likely underlying causes for the success of these models vs. the classic model.