Relevant publication
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Brosemann, Jonah K., Rick Overson, Arianne J. Cease, Sydney C. Millerwise, and Marion Le Gall. "Nutrient supply and accessibility in plants: effect of protein and carbohydrates on Australian plague locust (Chortoicetes terminifera) preference and performance." Frontiers in Insect Science 3: 1110518.
https://doi.org/10.3389/finsc.2023.1110518
Le Gall, Marion, Alioune Beye, Mamadou Diallo, and Arianne J. Cease. "Generational variation in nutrient regulation for an outbreaking herbivore." Oikos 2022, no. 7 (2022): e09096.
https://doi.org/10.1111/oik.09096
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Le Gall, Marion, and Spencer T. Behmer. "Effects of protein and carbohydrate on an insect herbivore: the vista from a fitness landscape." (2014): 942-954.
01
Mechanisms of nutrient regulation employed by herbivores.
Nutrition shapes all aspects of animal biology. All organisms need nutrients to grow, survive, and reproduce. The Geometric Framework for Nutrition provides a tool to establish and describe the complex link between nutrients and biology, including the physiological mechanisms that organisms employ to regulate their food intake, as well as the consequences on their health and performance. I used this approach to establish the nutritional preference of several pest herbivorous species like the Senegalese grasshopper (Oedaleus senegalensis) and the Australian Plague locust (Chortoicetes terminifera).
02
Land management and herbivore populations in grasslands and agricultural areas.
In agricultural areas, humans play an important role in shaping the nutrient content of plants and as a consequence the landscape available to herbivorous insects. Therefore, examining the relationship between crop management, plant nutrient, and herbivore abundance can help shape sustainable management programs. This body of work shows that nutrients are key drivers of herbivore population distributions and can be used to predict where economically important pests are located.
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Le Gall, Marion, Mira L. Word, Natalia Thompson, Balanding Manneh, Alioune Beye, and Arianne J. Cease. "Linking land use and the nutritional ecology of herbivores: A case study with the Senegalese locust." Functional Ecology 34, no. 1 (2020): 167-181.
https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.13466
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Lawton, Douglas, et al. "Woody vegetation remnants within pastures influence locust distribution: Testing bottom-up and top-down control." Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 296 (2020): 106931.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2020.106931
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Le Gall, Marion, Rick Overson, and Arianne Cease. "A global review on locusts (Orthoptera: Acrididae) and their interactions with livestock grazing practices." Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 7 (2019): 263.
Relevant publications
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Le Gall, Marion, Mamour Touré, Michel Lecoq, Lucile Marescot, Arianne Cease, and Idrissa Maiga. "Senegalese grasshopper—a major pest of the Sahel." In Biological and Environmental Hazards, Risks, and Disasters, pp. 77-96. Elsevier, 2023.
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-820509-9.00009-5
Le Gall, Marion, Mira L. Word, Natalia Thompson, Alioune Beye, and Arianne J. Cease. "Nitrogen fertilizer decreases survival and reproduction of female locusts by increasing plant protein to carbohydrate ratio." Journal of Animal Ecology 89, no. 10 (2020): 2214-2221.
https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icu102
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Le Gall, Marion, Matthew Boucher, and John F. Tooker. "Planted-green cover crops in maize/soybean rotations confer stronger bottom-up than top-down control of slugs." Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 334 (2022): 107980.
03
Nutritional preference and sustainable management programs.
FAO estimates that 20-40% of crop is lost to insect pests worldwide. For example, 25-30% of soybean production is damaged yearly by pests. As a result, over a billion pounds of pesticide are used every year in the United States, with hard consequences on the environment and a lot of adverse effects on agricultural allies like pollinators and natural enemies. Understanding the nutritional preference of major herbivorous pests in their landscape can help develop control methods based on their dietrary preferences rather than chemicals. For example, I can use the Geometric Framework for Nutrition approach to develop optimal artificial diets for the purpose of mass-rearing economically important orchard pests for Sterile Insect Technique (SIT). In SIT, pests are mass-produced and sterilized before release into the wild.