Behavioral trajectories as predictors in event history analysis: male calling behavior forecasts medfly longevity

A recent study on wild male Mediterranean fruit flies [Papadopoulos, N.T., Katsoyannos, B.I., Kouloussis, N.A., Carey, J.R., Müller, H.-G., Zhang, Y., 2004. High sexual signalling rates of young individuals predict extended life span in male Mediterranean fruit flies. Oecologia 138, 127-134] provided evidence that intense sexual signalling (calling behavior) is associated with longer life span. We demonstrate here an approach based on functional data analysis methodology for predicting individual remaining longevity and the distribution of remaining lifetime from individual behavioral trajectories. A key methodological concept is the time evolution of mean functions and eigenfunctions. This methodology is applied to the event history of calling behavior of male medflies. The results demonstrate complex relationships between male calling behavior and subsequent longevity that complement previous biodemographic analyses of these data. A high level of recent calling activity is found to be associated with increased remaining lifetime for an individual male fly, while calling activity at early ages plays no role for remaining longevity.