Q&A: Researchers investigate a plague of locusts in East Africa
Published Date: 7/1/2020
Source: phys.org
A plague of locusts has descended on East Africa, devouring crops, trees, and pasture as they move. The first generation, which emerged at the end of last year, numbered in the hundreds of billions. Left unchecked, locusts multiply by a factor of 20 per generation, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), meaning that the second generation that took flight in March and April numbered in the trillions. Now in July, a third generation is set to take off, paving the way for potentially calamitous food shortages in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia. Swarms can cover many square miles (sometimes areas as big as cities), move up to 100 miles a day, and eat their weight daily. Recently swarms have also emerged in India and Pakistan. Dino Martins is an entomologist, evolutionary biologist, and executive director of the Mpala Research Center in northern Kenya, which is working to sequence the locust genome. Martins '11 is a former doctoral researcher in the Naomi Pierce Lab in Harvard's Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. The Gazette spoke to him about the current situation in East Africa, focusing on his native Kenya, where he currently lives.