The Distribution of Larvae of Randomly Moving Insects

Abstract

Though randomly moving insects released from a central point in a uniform environment are often found to be distributed according to a circular normal distribution, their larvae will not conform to this distribution. When such insects lay at a constant rate and are subject to constant mortality, their larvae are found to be spatially distributed according to a highly peaked frequency function, depending on the modified Bessel function of the second kind. This theoretical conclusion is in good agreement with published data. Some of the properties of the theoretical distribution are discussed.