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Wheat Crops and Native Prairie in Relation to the Nutritional Ecology of Camnula pellucida (Scudder) (Orthoptera: Acrididae) in Saskatchewan1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 May 2012

R. Pickford
R. Pickford
Affiliation:
Entomology Section, Canada Agriculture Research Station Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
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Abstract

Field cage experiments conducted through the complete life cycle of Camnula pellucida (Scudder) demonstrated that wheat, the major cereal crop grown in Saskatchewan, played the dominant role in the nutritional ecology of this grasshopper. A native sod mixture, comprising Stipa comata, Bouteloua gracilis, Agropyron smithii, and Carex eleocharis, four of the dominant species of the mixed prairie association, was consistently unfavourable during all stages of grasshopper growth and development. Grasshoppers reared on wheat survived better, were considerably larger and laid up to 20 times more eggs than those reared on the native prairie grasses. The presence of the native sod with wheat contributed nothing nutritionally to the food combination. The unfavourable qualities of the native grasses, although resulting in small adults, low fecundity and small pods, did not affect the hatchability of eggs laid or the development and survival of nymphs that hatched from them.

Type
Articles
Information
The Canadian Entomologist , Volume 95 , Issue 7 , July 1963 , pp. 764 - 770
Copyright
Copyright © Entomological Society of Canada 1963

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