Table 1.
Details of bed bug populations used in this study.
Fig 1.
A. Bed bugs in a glass test tube with a strip of filter paper for harborage prior to heat exposure. B. An example of how the bed bugs were heat exposed in the water bath. C. After heat exposure in the water bath, the bed bugs were stunned and have fallen to the bottom of the test tube. D. Stunned bed bugs being placed in a Petri dish after heat exposure.
Fig 2.
Bars depicting average survivorship of late-instar Harlan nymphs (4th–5th instar) after each generation (F0 to F7) of selection or heat exposure at 45°C for 17.45 mins (LT75 time).
Bars not connected by the same letter show statistically different survivorship rate (P<0.05; Tukey’s test).
Fig 3.
A. A large nymph that survived heat exposure, but was unable to complete the molting process. B. A magnified view of a heat exposed bed bug shown in the left image. This insect was attempting to molt, but failed to escape its exoskeleton. The epicranial suture is circled in white appears to have opened, but the bed bug failed to escape through it. C. Depicted in the image from left to right are three heat exposed nymphs that failed to successfully molt to next instar after heat exposure. On the right is an exuvia from a nymph that did successfully molt. Photo credit: John Obermeyer.
Fig 4.
Bars representing percentage of Harlan nymphs from heat exposed (dark grey bars) and control (white bars) treatments that fed to repletion.
Bed bugs that survived heat exposure at 45°C were offered blood meals at five, eight, eleven, and fourteen days after treatment (n = 40 per replicate). An equal number of control bed bugs that were not exposed to heat were offered a blood meal at the same time intervals. Statistically significant differences were found between the two treatment types and are denoted with an asterisks (*). Nonparametric Wilcoxon tests showed that at all feeding intervals feeding responses of heat-exposed and control nymphs were significantly different (P<0.05). Error bars indicate ± standard error (SE) values.
Table 2.
Lethal time (LT) estimates and probit output for bed bug populations exposed to 45°C.