Cannibalism -- who would've thought?

Another cool post, Britt.

So, courtesy of the link provided here, I am reading about the group dynamics of locusts. It is a mini - holiday from reading about the group dynamic of politicians. Thanks for the diversion, Britt.

I think that's because they've eaten everything else available.

From the link:  researchers have been seeking to understand how the [locust] group seems to move with the synchronized perfection of the Rockettes

Note to the researchers:  those dancing bugs in the Disney movies aren't actually real!!

OK seriously, the person who wrote the linked article did such a poor job explaining this, I have to wonder if he/she actually understood what they were saying.

Summarizing it a little more succinctly: locusts in the food poor areas nip at each other a lot, and so... they spend a lot more time jumping vigorously about.  Where there's plenty of food, they settle down and browse, and are even known to say "howdy neighbor" and "care for a cigar?"  every once in awhile.

If these were molecules instead of six legged critters... you could think of the locust swarm as a cloud of gas, where the molecules are much hotter and faster moving in the food poor areas, than they are in the food rich areas.  Looked at over a large scale, just as happens with a cloud of real gas molecules... the "locust gas" tends to evaporate or diffuse away from the areas that are getting heating, and diffuse toward or condense in areas that are still cool.

This isn't coordinated action, it's just thermodynamics.  And indeed anyone who's ever stood in a swarm of locusts would, I'm sure, have a hard time spotting any resemblance between it and a broadway chorus line.  

The same cannot be said for flocks of birds or schools of fish.  Those truly represent coordinated action.

Not to take away from the importance of their fascinating research, I think they've just gone a bit overboard in glamorizing the lay description of what they found.  

Anyone interested in locusts should read "Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect That Shaped the American Frontier" by Jeffrey Lockwood. A very well-written book that delves into the history of the North American locust (a distinct species, not a form of grasshopper as once thought). It's a compelling read that weaves biology and history together in fascinating ways in a thoroughly engaging storyline. The dynamic that emerges is an excellent demonstration of just how deeply nature affects the development of human societies, in this way shaping the future of the American West. Strongly recommended.

As a side note, perhaps I'm being snippy, but a blog dedicated to science should not need snide comments like "Ever wondered what caused locusts to swarm? Me neither. But it turns out the answer is kind of neat, anyway:" from its authors. This publication has railed against the anti-intellectual streak in our society, yet Britt Peterson feels the need to hold ignorance above knowledge anyway. Ever occur to you that some of us ARE, in fact, interested in the natural world and not just the charismatic megafauna that city people coo at in zoos? If you're bored by the details of science, go write somewhere else. Otherwise, please consider abandoning the "can you believe some egghead actually studies this?" approach for a more worthwhile "wow, I had no idea" approach.

Britt,

Fair enough. Apologies for being perhaps over-sensitive to such things. After 8 years of Bush, I'm desperate for demonstrations of legitimate intellectual curiosity among our government and press.

Locusts are certainly more relevant out here than cockroaches.

literate...being that itinerant farmer that you are not, one can understand your feelings at being dismissed for your interests in the animal kingdom outside the zoo. Some folks take time to smell the flowers and also watch the local wild pollinators in action. I've had the pleasure of "petting" a wild bee doing its thing. But some people are just too busy in their own lives living in the concrete jungle to *think* about the insect world.

One of my favorite insects to watch in action is the preying mantis. Having come across them in the wild and seeing them hunt upon the screened porch, sometimes you can get a greater appreciation for the complex interactions going on around you. My other fav is the dragon fly. A true marvel of engineering and pest control. Their mating sequences are fun to watch at the end of the day.

For those interested in what a locust swarm might have been like, you might consider the occasional occurence of massive hatch swarms of other insects. The most famous recent event was a Mayfly hatch along the Mississippi River in 2006, which was easily captured on the NWS's weather radar and resulted in "Some roads across the Mississippi River...were covered with bugs, piling into 'drifts' on bridges over the Mississippi River and its tributaries..."

The first link I could find with an image:

www.jeffsweather.com/.../mayflies_caught.html

I experienced a swarm once at a baseball game in Detroit, in which a massive cloud of flying ants choked the stadium and delayed the game. It was truly awe-inspiring to watch this cloud sweep in across the outfield, causing impressive dances by the players and a mass rush to the exits by the fans. My friend and I were among the few who stayed in our seats, and experienced in some small way what a true locust swarm might have felt like. At least these guys weren't eating the stadium.

sportsillustrated.cnn.com/.../detroit_swarm_ap

singlespeed,

Not a very fitting moniker, is it? I've used it for many years, starting when it was in fact apt, and I'm used to it now. I'm no entomologist, but insects are fascinating and integral to my work (especially in organic agriculture).

Literatehobo: Nice apology. I was sure that Britt wasn't being anti - intellectual - at TNR of all places. Speaking of ants, have you heard about the the ones that came ashore in Texas and are invading homes, taking out electrical boxes, screwing up computers, and setting off fire alarms in Houston and environs? They are believed to have disembarked from a cargo ship; they are not native to Texas but are indigenous to the southeast US and the Carribean. The ants' proper name is paratrenicha species near pubens and they currently inhabit five counties in the region that includes Houston. They were originally spotted in 2002 and the good news is that they eat fire ants. It is not known why they are attracted to electrical equipment, as are some other kinds of ants. Well, people, here is a doctoral thesis in the making.

Reformer,

Yes, I read about that the other day in the WaPo. Fascinating. An excellent live-action example of the ecological effects of world trade, which have happened as long as humans have been exchanging goods, some good and some bad. The balance between good and bad exchange is fascinating. For example, vegetable growers in the Midwest are learning that many "unknown" Chinese varieties of common vegetables are well-suited for cultivation here, because their native regions in China share the same hot dry summers and cold winters, but the natural pests of those varieties aren't present here. So American/European cabbages are difficult to grow organically, but Chinese cabbages are great. Of course, the same dynamic creates terrible invasive species problems. Heaven forbid that Chinese cabbages go native someday and become a new kudzu...

TNR may be a relatively intellectual place, but it hosts its share of trivial crap, so I'm still on alert against that sort of thing taking hold. My mistake in this case.

Mayfly hatches. That reminds me of the time I took my cousin on his first back country flyfishing trip on the Gunnison River in CO. Hiked in and set up camp at the height of the stonefly hatch. Insects as long and fat as my index finger, flying everywhere, thick as thieves and flying about like drunk sailors. Needless to say the brown trout were not biting on anything other than those very fat stoneflies. And you had to resign yourself to them landing and crawling on you if you wanted to get your own fly into the right spot on the river. An amazing occurrence to be in and see.

Britt...I remember the cicadas hatch in 2004 and my friends in town from Providence just couldn't believe the noise and the clumsiness of those things. Trying to find a clear spot on a sidewalk without crushing or slipping on them up around the National Cathedral was a challenge.

Literatehobo: Thank you for you usual fine reply. I assume you don't peruse the print version of TNR. Very little of the quotidian there. Out here, though, you are correct that the trivial does worm its way in . I would be fascinated to hear your take on the state of the enviroment at a planetary level. I can recall when a close friend of mine went through his "doomsday" phase in the early to mid - '70's giving himself a frisson by reading ecodisaster books with titles like Population Control Through Nuclear Pollution. Not to mention the novels of Phillip Wylie. Gary W. still tends to the dystopian but in a more measured way now. I remember a decade or so ago, bouncing off of him Gregg Easterbrook's thesis that the ecological situation had greatly improved. He was unmoved and I did think that Easterbrook was a little too Candidish but certain paramaters have definitely improved, like US air quality. So my question to you: Can man survive himself?

Another classic of the swarm genre, David Quammen's "Before the Fall," collected in Wild Thoughts from Wild Places. Quammen explains the plague's ecological causes of a plague of tent caterpillars, but he also gives the plague an allegorical turn, arriving at this question:

Is Homo sapiens an outbreak population, just reaching the peak of its curve, as the entomologist Alan Berryman suggests? And if we are presently experiencing an outbreak, what does science warn us to expect?

Reformer,

I recieve and enjoy the print edition; I should have made clear that I was referring to the web site. Once again, my apologies for speaking too broadly and quickly.

I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the titles and authors you cite. I wasn't even born in the early 70s, though that has little to do with having read something or not. As to the question, I think it's overly vague. Man as a species? Man at a certain level of development? Man as we are today? One of the political problems with the "green" movement is that it tends to speak in new-age vagarities like "save the planet" or "save mankind". The planet's not going anywhere, and its ecosystem, biodiversity, climate, and geology have varied over time almost beyond our capacity to appreciate. This vaguess gives critics like George Will the perfect opening to claim that it's all a bunch of nonsense because clearly extinctions and climate changes were far worst pre-modern-human, so what's the big deal? What the green movement really means, or should, is "save the humans at the current level of cultural/industrial sophistication they're comfortably used to".

I remember confronting this issue while working for the National Park Service. That agency's mission is often one of preservation (with regards to certain habitats, species, etc.), but how could we judge what to appropriately preserve? If natural competition is eliminating one of our historic species, do we undertake active spraying programs to control the pest and attempt to impose a false plateau in the natural arc of the ecosystem? Even if human acticity is clearly to blame in a given situation, are parks intended as static historical zoos or dynamic natural preserves?

I'm not concerned about climate change or environmental issues at a planetary scale, because change is the natural of geologic history. I mourn the loss of the dinosaurs, but look what possibilities that opened up. We humans will mourn the loss of cuddly polar bears, but the dangers we need to address are those that affect us beyond the aesthetic. From a coldly human perspective, the tragedy of the Amazon is not the loss of pretty butterfles, it's the loss of unknown pharmaceutical advances. The tragedy of desertification is not the loss of grassland habitat, it's the onset of starvation. The tragedy of air pollution is not the loss of stars, it's the cancers and diseases it causes. Much of what the green movement decries as harming the planet is more accurately defined as harming ourselves. A corollary to that might be, cultural and economic practices that best preserve a healthy environment for humans are likely to produce a healthy overall ecosystem as well. So we can still "save the planet" as we know it, but I'd rather do it through the lens of rational self-benefit than an undefined and easily refuted pseudo-pagan environmentalism.

I am an organic farmer not because I believe in Mother Gaia, but because I believe this approach to agriculture carries the best cost/benefit with respect to economics, health, beneficial biodiversity, and culture. Anyone looking for vegetables planted by moon phases or star alignments had better look elsewhere. I'm not a dystopian, and have little interest in pondering doomsday scenarios. Nuclear weapons throw in a wild card that I have no way to meaningfully address beyond the level of philosophy you might find in any 2am dorm lounge. To make an honest attempt at your question, I suppose I am confident that the human race as a whole will weather just about anything. Whether we will do so without massive wars, death, pestilence, and other disruptions remains to be seen. The question to me is not whether we'll adapt to anything that comes, but how, and at what cost.

Literatehobo: Thanks for a beautifully lyrical meditation. I purposely didn't fine - tune my interrogative because I wanted you to think your way through my metaquestion. And you did so, very well. I am certainly not a dystopian, either; I too have forever talked about the resilience of the planet and of life. But I also am derisory of unqualified technophilia and of the George Wills of the world. Thanks again.

Interesting how many people have direct memories of some form of swarm. I wouldn't have expected that. Now that it's mentioned, I remember hearing about the D.C. swarm.

Reformer,

George Will makes many good arguments at times. He just seems to have a straw giant built up around environmental issues. I think "unqualified technophilia" is a good phrase for some of the dynamic that is driving our system at the moment.

I didn't realize I was in a test. Didn't even see the maze walls. Nice lab. Got some cheese?

Literatehobo: I too am a sometime fan of George Will. He writes extremely well but he has - like all of us - his blind spots.