428 B. B. Fand et al.
due to climate change in these areas is predicted to
increase the finite rate of increase of P. solenopsis
throughout the year with maximum during the
cotton cropping season (Fig. 10a and 10b).
The temperature influenced significantly the
development, survival, and reproduction of P.
solenopsis. The development times of the imma-
ture stages of P. solenopsis reported in this study
are in conformity with earlier reports (Fand et al.
2010 ; Nikam et al. 2010 ; Vennila et al. 2010 ; Ali
et al. 2012 ; Asifa et al. 2012 ; Prasad et al. 2012 ).
Relatively, lower mortality rates reported by
Prasad et al. ( 2012 ) in first-instar nymphs of P.
solenopsis are slightly deviating from this study,
which largely may be because of differences in
rearing procedures and food source/host plant
used for rearing of test insect, that seriously af-
fect survival of test organisms. A curvilinear re-
sponse for fecundity with a maximum at 30 °C
(286.43 eggs/female) and dropping off at tem-
peratures below and above this are in conformity
with reports of Nagrare et al. ( 2009 , 2011 ) and
Prasad et al. ( 2012 ). The life table parameters es-
timated from the outputs of P. solenopsis simula-
tion model are in agreement with the previous re-
ports (Nagrare et al. 2009 , 2011 ; Fand et al. 2010 ;
Prasad et al. 2012 ).Fig. 8 Simulated finite rate of increase of P. solenopsis throughout the year at present climatic conditions for Ludhiana
(a) and Akola (b)
Fig. 7 Activity index (AI) for P. solenopsis in India at current (1950–2000) (a) and future (SRES A1B scenario 2050)
(b) climatic conditions simulated using interpolated minimum and maximum temperature data from worldclim data-
base. An index value of 1 represents tenfold potential population increase within a year at present and future climatic
conditions