Locusts can form dense bands and swarms that can cause substantial damage to pastures and crops. For many years, State Departments of Agriculture aimed to protect crops by conducting locust control programs in their agricultural areas but in recent years the Australian Plague Locust Commission (APLC) has conducted preventive control programs that begin in locust source areas in the interior. The current preventive control programs are the culmination of more than 70 years of continuous research, conducted for many years by CSIRO and State Departments of Agriculture and more recently, by the APLC. Early research followed the sequence of outbreaks in agricultural areas but by the 1960s, there was increasing evidence that locusts commonly bred in the interior and then migrated to agricultural zones. These migrations covered long distances, often from one state to another and in 1974 the APLC was established with the specific mandate to control locusts that posed an interstate threat. The rationale was for the APLC to control locusts both at source in the interior as well as in the agricultural zone. Controlling locusts in the interior had never been attempted before and an intense research program was initiated as part of APLC operations that has culminated in the current preventive locust control programs. Preventive control involves early intervention, where treatment begins with localised populations present early in breeding sequences and continues every generation thereafter. To rapidly locate and control localised locust infestations over a large part of eastern Australia, a Decision Support System for locust management was developed that integrates data from a wide variety of sources to help operations staff determine when and where to concentrate survey and control efforts. When threatening locust populations are detected, control teams can be rapidly deployed to wherever treatment is required. An integral part of locust control programs is limiting environmental and monetary costs so that an important component of APLC research has been to focus on reducing chemical use by using the lowest effective dose and by using products that can be applied in barriers 300–500 m apart so that only a small proportion of the area is sprayed. Increasing constraints on insecticide use, including the production of organic beef in locust source areas, has led to the development of a biological alternative. The latter program led to nearly 25 000 ha of locusts being treated with the biological agent Metarhizium during the 2000–01 locust season, the first large-scale operational use of this biopesticide anywhere in the world.

Advances in the control of locusts (Orthoptera: Acrididae) in eastern Australia: from crop protection to preventive control

Using recapture data and radio-telemetry, the movement patterns of small mammals occupying burned and unburned habitats in the Simpson Desert, western Queensland were investigated. Long-term, between trap sessions, recapture rates of small mammals ranged from 7.3 % for Sminthopsis youngsoni to less than 1 % for Pseudomys desertor. Seventeen individuals including Pseudomys hermannsburgensis, S. youngsoni and Notomys alexis were observed to make longdistance movements (> 500 m). The longest recorded movement in this study was 5.7 km by a male S. youngsoni. Telemetry and recapture data indicate that individual P. hermannsburgensis, S. youngsoni and N. alexis can move more than 700 m and up to 2 km in a single night. Radiotracked P. hermannsburgensis and N. alexis utilised a mosaic of burned and unburned habitats in a single night of foraging. Low rates of recapture for small mammals in the Australian arid zone suggest that the populations of many species consist largely of transient individuals. Some species of small mammals appear to have sufficient mobility to locate resource rich patches and utilise habitat mosaics along a continuum of scales. These range from long-distance and presumably unidirectional migrations of 10 km or more, through to nightly movements in the order of several hundred metres to 1 - 2 km.

Long distance movements and the use of fire mosaics by small mammals in the Simpson Desert, central Australia

In Australia, where approximately 80% of the land area is arid or semiarid, rainfall is the major factor limiting acridid populations. Rainfall is not only limiting in terms of quantity but also in being highly variable, both temporally and spatially. In this paper, the main adaptations seen in Australian Acrididae to overcome limiting rainfall are discussed with special reference to economically important species. In the arid to semiarid subtropics (lat 23–33°S) rainfall is slightly summer-dominant but extended dry periods can occur in any season. Chortoicetes terminifera, the main pest species, avoids dry periods through embryonic diapause or survives dry periods as quiescent eggs or adults. Migration is critical for survival as it allows locusts to locate areas of localized rainfall. Outbreaks are frequent and develop when enough rain falls to allow continuous breeding over three to four generations. In temperate areas of subcoastal southern Australia, summers are dry and most rain falls in wi...

Adaptations of locusts and grasshoppers to the low and variable rainfall of Australia

Twenty-two lakes, swamps and ponds on, or adjacent to, siliceous coastal dunes from Newcastle to Tweed Heads were investigated. Most of the waterbodies originated by deflation, with organic accumulation and development of perched water-tables involved in establishing those in higher dunes inland. Some were located in depressions in hard rock, blocked by dunes. Most had low total dissolved solids content with Na+ and Cl- dominant, but in and near frontal dunes Ca2+ and HCO3- were important and salinity was higher. Dissolved organic matter coloured the water of those with swampy environs. Humic waters were markedly acidic, frontal dune ponds alkaline, and lakes in contact with dunes near neutral. The physicochemical features of the only waterbody connected to the sea, Blue Lagoon, varied spatially and temporally with rainfall. Lake muds were dys. The dominant plants were all emergents, with Lepironia auriculata (Retz) prominent in most waterbodies on or near leached dunes. Calamoecia tasmanica (Smith) dominated the plankton; species diversity was higher in lakes in contact with dunes than in those surrounded by leached dunes. No euzooplankters were recovered from frontal dune ponds or Blue Lagoon. Overall, littoral invertebrates were reasonably diverse but limited in frontal dune ponds. Most notable was the restriction of molluscs and ostracods to sites on or adjacent to frontal dunes, the presence of some characteristic microcrustaceans in sites on or near leached dunes, and the ubiquity of many insect groups, particularly hemipterans and coleopterans. Benthos was depauperate in species and numbers in lakes surrounded by leached dunes; diversity and standing crops were higher in lakes in contact with dunes. <P.A typology scheme, based on, and showing the interrelationships between, mode of origin, water chemistry and salient biological features, showed much greater heterogeneity among dune lakes in eastern Australia than previously thought.

Coastal dune waterbodies of north-eastern New South Wales

The Australian Plague Locust Commission (APLC) has a mandated role in monitoring, forecasting, and managing populations of key locust species across four Australian states. Satellite normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) imagery is used to monitor vegetation condition in locust habitat and is integrated with mapping software to support forecasting and operations within the strategic framework of APLC activities. The usefulness of NDVI data for monitoring locust habitats is tested using historical control and survey records for the Australian plague locust, Chortoicetes terminifera (Walker). In arid habitat areas, control of high-density nymphal populations was consistently associated with high and increased relative NDVI during summer and autumn, providing important information for locating possible infestations. Regression models of NDVI data and regional biogeographic factors were fitted to summer survey records of C. terminifera presence and abundance. Models identified increased vegetation greenness, measured by a one-month positive change in NDVI, as having a significant positive relationship with nymph distributions, while NDVI was significant in adult distributions. Seasonal rainfall regions and a binary habitat stratification were significant explanatory factors in all models.

https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/journals/Journal-of-Applied-Remote-Sensing/volume-7/issue-1/075096/Satellite-normalized-difference-vegetation-index-data-used-in-managing-Australian/10.1117/1.JRS.7.075096.pdf

Satellite normalized difference vegetation index data used in managing Australian plague locusts

Stony downs consist of grassy areas that alternate with areas that have a substantial stone cover. The stone-covered areas are impermeable, and most rain falling on them runs off, substantially increasing the effective rainfall in adjacent grassy areas. As a result, 20–25 mm of rain on stony downs wetted the soil around the grass to a depth of 140–170 mm and allowed sustained grass response. This is much less than the 35–40 mm of rain required for the same response on red clay or grey clay plains.



Grasses respond very rapidly after rain. Some have green shoots the day after rain, and all have responded by the second day. Ephemerals dry off in 4–6 weeks, but most tussock grasses still have some green foliage 8–10 weeks after rain. Deeper rooted tussock grasses remain green for so long because most of the moisture that reaches deeper roots after rain remains there. Most moisture loss is through the soil surface and is recognizable as a drying front that descends through the soil profile. Soil above the drying front is nearly air dry (<5% moisture) while soil below the front has substantial moisture (14–16%). By about a month after rain in summer, the drying front is at a depth of about 80–120 mm. This is near the tips of the roots of ephemeral grasses and the ephemerals then dry off rapidly. Only the tips of the leaves of deep rooted grasses like Mitchell grass (Astrebla spp.) dry off. Their leaves continue to remain mostly green during most of the second month after rain and they do not dry off completely until the third month when the drying front reaches the bottom of the main root system.

The rapid and long‐lasting growth of grasses following small falls of rain on stony downs in the arid interior of Australia

This ecological study of the Myall Lakes, a lagoon system on the New South Wales central coast, presents the physical setting and characteristics of the Lakes’catchments and relates these characteristics to the hydrochemical features of surface and subsurface waters. In turn these hydrochemical features have been related to the aquatic communities.



It is suggested that the predominance of forest vegetation and stable soils in the Lakes’catchment has assisted in retaining these lakes in a generally undisturbed state.



Fluctuations of salinity, turbidity and ionic concentrations in the lower part of the system are controlled by natural inputs of rainfall, run-off and tidal flushings. However, Boolambayte Lake and particularly Myall Lake, the upper part of the system, appear to be isolated from these influences. The aquatic communities reflect these hydrochemical differences.



The lack of flushing of waters in this upper part of the system, in Dirty Creek and to a lesser extent in the Myall River immediately upstream of the Broadwater, makes these areas particularly susceptible to pollution and eutrophication associated with increased development.

An ecological investigation of the Myall Lakes region

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The rapid and long‐lasting growth of grasses following small falls of rain on stony downs in the arid interior of Australia

An ecological investigation of the Myall Lakes region