Cold treatment with rigorous regulatory oversight is often mandated to manage horticultural trade-related biosecurity threats, such as invasive, cold-sensitive fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae). Cold treatment schedules, developed through rigorous laboratory experiments, require a set temperature and duration to ensure at least a probit 8.7 (99.99%) mortality rate, regardless of infestation likelihood. This threshold is costly to demonstrate for each pest and commodity combination and the resultant treatment may be harmful to fruit quality. Moreover, these stringent schedules do not account for cold-induced mortality already occurring in commercial supply chains. We developed a predictive temperature-dependent mortality function using 28 published cold treatment studies of pest fly species to support more flexible and proportionate use of cold treatment. The daily mortality rate was unaffected by the duration of cold exposure (0–20 days). The mortality rate varied primarily by pest species (10 species) and developmental stage (eggs and larval stages), and to a lesser extent by temperature (0–7 °C) and host (13 fruit types). Our model mostly predicted fewer days to meet probit 9.0 mortality compared to empirical results from large-scale studies, suggesting these studies can be overly conservative. By leveraging previous empirical studies, our model enables estimation of temperature-dependent daily mortality for unstudied pest developmental stage host–temperature combinations, which can then be empirically validated through targeted studies. It is hoped these results will shift cold treatment usage from highly regulated, fixed temperature treatments with a target mortality rate requirement to a more flexible approach that accounts for existing commercial supply chain practices and infestation likelihood in produce.

通常需要在严格的监管监督下进行冷处理，以管理与园艺贸易相关的生物安全威胁，例如入侵性、对冷敏感的果蝇（双翅目：实蝇科）。通过严格的实验室实验制定的冷处理方案需要设定温度和持续时间，以确保至少 8.7 (99.99%) 的死亡率，无论感染可能性如何。对于每种害虫和商品组合，证明这一阈值的成本很高，而且由此产生的处理可能对水果质量有害。此外，这些严格的时间表没有考虑到商业供应链中已经发生的寒冷引起的死亡。我们利用 28 项已发表的害虫蝇类冷处理研究开发了一个预测温度依赖性死亡率函数，以支持更灵活、更合理地使用冷处理。每日死亡率不受寒冷暴露时间（0-20 天）的影响。死亡率主要因害虫种类（10 种）和发育阶段（卵和幼虫阶段）而异，在较小程度上因温度（0-7 °C）和寄主（13 种水果类型）而异。与大规模研究的实证结果相比，我们的模型大多预测达到概率 9.0 死亡率的天数会更少，这表明这些研究可能过于保守。通过利用以前的实证研究，我们的模型能够估计未经研究的害虫发育阶段宿主-温度组合的温度依赖性每日死亡率，然后可以通过有针对性的研究进行实证验证。 希望这些结果能够将冷处理的使用从严格监管、具有目标死亡率要求的固定温度处理转变为更灵活的方法，以考虑现有的商业供应链实践和农产品中的感染可能性。