A new plague of the Desert Locust
Schistocerca gregaria
started in 1986; it developed quickly in 1987 in the Sahelian countries and reached northwest Africa at the end of 1987. It expanded in 1988 in north Africa, the Sahel, the Sudan, the Near East, southwest Asia, and in October 1988, swarms crossed the Atlantic to the Caribbean. The plague declined dramatically in the past quarter of 1988, and by March 1989 the plague was over. A study of the latest known upsurges provides more support to the theory that a build-up of locusts arises from initially low-density populations rather than from the persistence of undetected swarming populations. The decline of the recent plague was probably attributable to the cumulative effect of control operations combined with natural environmental factors. Prevention of new plagues of the Desert Locust will be much more difficult as the restriction on the use of dieldrin poses major technical, logistic and financial problems.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.