Modeling insect population fluctuations with satellite land surface temperature

•MODIS land surface temperature (LST) was used to model the population trends of the olive fly.•Tree-canopy temperatures at 1km resolution were derived from LST temperature-series.•Eleven years of olive fly population trends were simulated for three different locations.•The model successfully simulated the seasonal population trends.•Good results were obtained from the validation of the model conducted with olive fly trapping data.