Modelling temperature-dependency in biology by generalizing temperature coefficient Q10

Temperature is an important biological factor and affects numerous biological processes and phenomena. Many models have been proposed to describe the effects of temperature on these biological processes. In this paper, I develop a general temperature and time-dependent model of the state of a biological process as a function of temperature and time. This model generalizes that underlying temperature coefficient and can be used to estimate its parameters from data on the state, temperature and time, or on any two of the three quantities, given the other fixed. To demonstrate its utility in data analysis, I use a special case to estimate some parameters from data on the duration of one mitotic cycle during synchronous cleavage divisions of the rainbow trout Salmo gairdneri and the Russian sturgeon Acipenser güldenstنdti as a function of water temperature.