Arianne Cease, associate professor in the Schools of Sustainability and Life Sciences, is principal investigator on MCA: Leveraging nutritional ecophysiology and modeling to improve understanding of how environmental nutrients mediate the impacts of global change on locust swarms, a new grant awarded by the National Science Foundation.
Says Cease: The NSF MCA award supports mid-career researchers to substantively enhance and advance their research program through synergistic partnerships.
This project will support Cease to expand her nearly 20 years of field and lab research on locust nutritional ecology and migration by collaborating with two leading locust modelers: Dr. Cyril Piou, CIRAD (French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development) and the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations’ (UN) Desert Locust Information Service; and Dr. Michael Kearney, The University of Melbourne. Together, they will leverage FAO locust survey data to build mechanistic models that integrate locust nutrition to improve predictions on when and where locusts will form migratory swarms and how far they can travel. These models will support faster and more targeted responses to locust plagues, reducing pesticide use and improving food security.
A brief summary follows:
This project will improve our ability to predict and manage locust outbreaks by linking insect nutrition with environmental nitrogen cycling. Locusts, which can form massive swarms that threaten food security, are unexpectedly encouraged by nitrogen-poor plants created by poor land practices. Through computer modeling, the project will connect locust feeding, nutrient use, and nitrogen dynamics across landscapes, providing insights that help farmers and organizations better prepare for damaging outbreaks. It will also train students and strengthen partnerships with groups working to protect crops.
This MCA offers a unique training opportunity for a mid-career faculty member, expanding her ability to connect organismal nutrient use with large-scale models. Her previous work has shown that nitrogen-depleted environments promote swarm formation, but linking locust nutrition to nitrogen cycling at landscape scales remains a major challenge. The MCA will address this through training in modeling and large datasets, development of mechanistic niche models that integrate nutritional ecophysiology, and agent-based modeling of how nitrogen cycling shapes swarm development and movement. The results will be applied directly through collaborations with plant-protection organizations and will have lasting impacts on the PI’s teaching, mentoring, and research.
The photo is of the South American locust during a past field season in Argentina. Photo credit to Rick Overson and Laura Steger.
