Morphometric and Molecular Comparisons of Two isolated Populaions of the Desert Locust, Schistocerca gregaria (Orthoptera: Arcididae)

Abstract

In Africa, there are two well known subspecies of the desert locust: the sahara subspecies, Schistocerca gregaria gregaria (Forskal) and the southern west subspecies, Schistocerca gregaria flaviventris (Burmeister) . The sahara desert area, which is invaded by the S. g. gregaria is divided into three main regions: the north central region, south central and western regions. These populations are connected by migration circuits of swarms and gene flow occurs continuously between the populations. The invasion area of S. g. flaviventris covers an area of about 860,000 Km2 • It occurs in Namibia, South Africa, Botswana, Angola and Ascension Islands. It is known that the desert area of north Africa was in contact with that of southern Africa via an arid corridor across central Africa. Successive reduction in the aridity have isolated S. g. flaviventris population from S. g. gregaria when the corridor became filled with woodland and savanna unsuited to the locusts to breed. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the effect of the geographical barrier on the two desert locust populations, Schistocerca g. gregaria and Schistocerca g. flaviventris. The research focused on the degree of similarity or differences in: (a) the morphometrics by using the univariate and multivariate analyses; (continue from the attached PDF)