Linking land use and the nutritional ecology of herbivores: a case study with the Senegalese locust

1) Access to high-quality food is a main driver of population dynamics. For herbivores protein and carbohydrates are key nutrients that are notoriously variable in plants and are affected by land use. However, few studies have linked foraging decisions and performance in the laboratory to the nutritional landscape available in the field. 2) Oedaleus senegalensis is a nonmodel locust, a grass-feeder, and the main pest of millet, a subsistence crop in the Sahel. In this study, we examined dietary preference and locust performance across a range of protein:carbohydrate ratios using the Geometric Framework methodology. We then applied a fitness landscape approach to visualize these results with the plant nutrient contents available across four land-use types: millet, groundnut, fallow, and grazed fields. Finally, we contrasted our results with locust distribution in the field. Several locust species (O. senegalensis included) exhibit density dependent color polymorphism thus we also report...