  Entomophthoralean fungi are insect pathogenic fungi and are characterized by
their active discharge of infective conidia that infect insects. Our aim was to
study the effects of temperature on the discharge and to characterize the
variation in the associated temporal pattern of a newly discovered Pandora
species with focus on peak location and shape of the discharge. Mycelia were
incubated at various temperatures in darkness, and conidial discharge was
measured over time. We used a novel modification of a statistical model
(pavpop), that simultaneously estimates phase and amplitude effects, into a
setting of generalized linear models. This model is used to test hypotheses of
peak location and discharge of conidia. The statistical analysis showed that
high temperature leads to an early and fast decreasing peak, whereas there were
no significant differences in total number of discharged conidia. Using the
proposed model we also quantified the biological variation in the timing of the
peak location at a fixed temperature.
