The 1915 Locust Attack in Syria and Palestine and its Role in the Famine During the First World War

Foster, Zachary J.

doi:10.1080/00263206.2014.976624

Cited by 25 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…A single locust swarm can contain millions of individuals [2] and in a single day is able to move up to 200 kilometres [3]; with each locust being able to consume its own body weight in food [4]. Locusts have played a role in severe famine [5], disease outbreaks [6], and even the toppling of dynasties [7]. More recently, in March 2020 a perfect storm of events caused the worst locust outbreaks in over 25 years in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya during the COVID-19 pandemic [8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling locust foraging: How and why food affects group formation

et al. 2021

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Locusts are short horned grasshoppers that exhibit two behaviour types depending on their local population density. These are: solitarious, where they will actively avoid other locusts, and gregarious where they will seek them out. It is in this gregarious state that locusts can form massive and destructive flying swarms or plagues. However, these swarms are usually preceded by the aggregation of juvenile wingless locust nymphs. In this paper we attempt to understand how the distribution of food resources affect the group formation process. We do this by introducing a multi-population partial differential equation model that includes non-local locust interactions, local locust and food interactions, and gregarisation. Our results suggest that, food acts to increase the maximum density of locust groups, lowers the percentage of the population that needs to be gregarious for group formation, and decreases both the required density of locusts and time for group formation around an optimal food width. Finally, by looking at foraging efficiency within the numerical experiments we find that there exists a foraging advantage to being gregarious.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling locust foraging: How and why food affects group formation

et al. 2021

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“…Such flooding also influences the population and movement of desert locusts (Schistocerca gregaria) [96][97][98][99] , a key threat to agricultural crops. Heavy and extensive rainfall provides moist soil for egg laying, and the subsequent rain-fed flush of vegetation provides shelter and food for the locusts, leading to widespread damage by locust plagues.…”

Section: Agricultural Impactsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drivers and impacts of Eastern African rainfall variability

Palmer

Wainwright

Dong

et al. 2023

Nat Rev Earth Environ

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Eastern Africa exhibits bimodal rainfall consisting of long rains (March-May) and short rains (October-December), changes in which have profound socioeconomic and environmental impacts. In this Review, we examine the drivers and corresponding impacts of Eastern African rainfall variability. Remote teleconnections, namely the El Niño-Southern Oscillation and the Indian Ocean Dipole, exert a dominant influence on interannual variability. From the mid-1980s to 2010, the long rains have tended toward a drier state (trends of −0.65 to −2.95 mm season −1 year −1 ), with some recovery thereafter, while the short rains have become wetter since the mid 1980s (1.44 to 2.36 mm season −1 year −1 ). These trends, overlain by substantial year-to-year variations, affect the severity and frequency of extreme flooding and droughts, the stability of food and energy systems, the susceptibility to water-borne and vectorborne diseases, and ecosystem stability. Climate model projections of rainfall changes differ, but there is some consensus that the short rains will deliver more rainfall than the long rains by 2030-2040, with implications for sustaining agricultural yields and triggering climaterelated public health emergencies. Mitigating the impacts of future Eastern African climate requires continued investments in agriculture, clean water, medical and emergency infrastructures, and development and adoption of adaptation strategies, as well as targeted early-warning systems driven by improved meteorological observations. Sections 2015 coincided with a weaker IOD, producing anomalies ~50% above the climatological mean 18 . However, these relationships are nonlinear, as demonstrated by extreme 2019/2020 rainfall that occurred during an anomalously positive phase of the IOD but neutral ENSO conditions 20 .The IOD and ENSO physically influence Eastern African short rains by modifying regional atmospheric circulation features (Fig. 2a,b).Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author selfarchiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

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“…Locusts are described as a pest of unusually destructive powers: A desert locust adult can consume roughly its own weight, i.e., about two grams, in fresh food per day [ 3 ]. The notorious 1915 locust attack in the Middle East, for example, resulted in wiping out a largely underestimated 536,000 tons of food [ 4 ]. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, in modern days, e.g., during the 2003–2004 locust invasions, this translated to around US$30 million spent by a typical African nation in anti-locust campaigns [ 5 ].…”

Section: Introduction—why Locusts?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Locust Collective Motion and Its Modeling

2015

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Over the past decade, technological advances in experimental and animal tracking techniques have motivated a renewed theoretical interest in animal collective motion and, in particular, locust swarming. This review offers a comprehensive biological background followed by comparative analysis of recent models of locust collective motion, in particular locust marching, their settings, and underlying assumptions. We describe a wide range of recent modeling and simulation approaches, from discrete agent-based models of self-propelled particles to continuous models of integro-differential equations, aimed at describing and analyzing the fascinating phenomenon of locust collective motion. These modeling efforts have a dual role: The first views locusts as a quintessential example of animal collective motion. As such, they aim at abstraction and coarse-graining, often utilizing the tools of statistical physics. The second, which originates from a more biological perspective, views locust swarming as a scientific problem of its own exceptional merit. The main goal should, thus, be the analysis and prediction of natural swarm dynamics. We discuss the properties of swarm dynamics using the tools of statistical physics, as well as the implications for laboratory experiments and natural swarms. Finally, we stress the importance of a combined-interdisciplinary, biological-theoretical effort in successfully confronting the challenges that locusts pose at both the theoretical and practical levels.

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The 1915 Locust Attack in Syria and Palestine and its Role in the Famine During the First World War

Cited by 25 publications

References 1 publication

Modelling locust foraging: How and why food affects group formation

Modelling locust foraging: How and why food affects group formation

Drivers and impacts of Eastern African rainfall variability

Locust Collective Motion and Its Modeling

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