In the heat of the moment: Including realistic thermal fluctuations results in dramatically altered key population parameters

Temperature is commonly acknowledged as one of the primary forces driving ectotherm vector populations, most notably by influencing metabolic rates and survival. Although numerous experiments have shown this for a wide variety of organisms, the vast majority has been conducted at constant temperatures and changes therein, while temperature is far from constant in nature, and includes seasonal and diurnal cycles. As fluctuating temperatures have been described to affect metabolic processes at (sub)cellular level, this calls for studies evaluating the relative importance of temperature fluctuations and the changes therein. To gain insight in the effects of temperature fluctuations on ectotherm development, survival, and sex ratio, we developed an inexpensive, easily reproducible, and open-source, Arduino-based temperature control system, which emulates natural sinusoidal fluctuations around the average temperature. We used this novel setup to compare the effects of constant (mean) temperatures, most commonly used in experiments, block schemes, and natural sinusoidal fluctuations as well as an extreme variant with twice its amplitude using the cosmopolitan mosquito species