An Ecological Niche Model for Dociostaurus maroсcanus, Thunberg, 1815 (Orthoptera, Acrididae): The Nesting Environment and Survival of Egg-Pods

Abstract

Since the earliest times, the problem of the locust has been a very serious one for agriculture and food production in particular. Devastating locust plagues are known from the Old and the New World where locust swarms terrified the earliest settlement and towns, leaving not a single green branch on the fields. Ways to combat locust plagues were often ineffective or extremely expensive due to a lack of information on the exact location of the newly hatched locusts; and the lack of an accurate assessment of the number of locusts in currently forming swarms. Rapidly developing GIS applications, especially as part of environmental modelling, appear to be a good means of forecasting a locust plague, being based on accurate ground observation and expert knowledge of the biology and ecology of the locust species. This paper represents an example of extended ecological modelling for the nesting conditions of Dociostaurus maroccanus, a well-known gregarious acridid species, with emphasis on the explanation of key environmental variables as revealed by the model.