What an exciting life!
At the recent 13th International congress of orthopterology organized by the Orthopterists’ Society in Agadir, in March 2019, I had the honor of receiving the D.C.F. Rentz award, "in recognition of a life dedicated to the study of Orthoptera", I would like, on this occasion, to share some memories and thoughts. At the moment that I received the award, I was filled with emotion and with joy, but I also looked back with nostalgia at the various stages of my career for which our Society was kind enough to give me this award. How many years ago was it that I had my first encounter with Orthoptera—as a young child of 4 years scared by locusts in the French Pyrenees, through my studies at the University of Orleans, then at the University of Paris-Orsay, through many and varied types of work to the "young" retiree that I currently am. I look back on my first work in Madagascar were I lived several years; my thesis on the migrations of the solitary phase of the migratory locust; my recruitment to GERDAT [1] (later CIRAD [2]) in 1975 and my research on locusts in the Sahel at a time when I was posted to Burkina Faso; followed by many study trips, consultations and assignments in various countries of the world, starting with Brazil where I lived twice, first in the Northeast then in the state of São Paulo.
1971 Madagascar – In the far South, trying to work on the Migratory locust.
The world was for me a rich, wonderful and fantastic field for research! My work on Orthoptera was carried out on areas as varied as the extreme south of Madagascar, the sandy tracks of the Sahara, the Australian outback, the llanos of Colombia, the forests of Borneo and Sumatra, the islands of the Cape Verde archipelago, and in Brazil--the caatinga of the Northeast as well as pioneering work in Mato Grosso ... and many other places even more exciting than the others.
1982 Cape Verde islands – Study on the local grasshoppers.
My research focused on the population dynamics and ecology of various locust and grasshopper species such as the Migratory locust (Locusta migratoria), the Red Locust (Nomadacris septemfasciata), the Italian Locust (Calliptamus italicus), the Senegalese grasshopper (Oedaleus senegalensis), the Mato Grosso Locust in Brazil (Rhammatocerus schistocercoides), and - of course - the Desert locust (Schistocerca gregaria) in Africa. This variety of work led me, from time to time, to experiment with various new insecticides, but by the end of the 1990s I was moving towards the mycopesticides, in particular in Brazil with colleagues at Cenargen [3]. The growing importance that these organic products are beginning to have, especially in Asia, shows me that this orientation was undoubtedly the right one. In addition to working on pest locusts, I also conducted ecological research on harmless species, such as many grasshoppers from West Africa, some European species such as the Mediterranean grasshopper Arcyptera brevipennis vicheti, some species of the Calliptamus genus, and even rare and protected species such as the Stone Grasshopper Prionotropis hystrix rhodanica, listed on the IUCN [4] World Red List. I can also cite Poekilocerus bufonius hieroglyphicus (Klug, 1832), a common species in the Sahel, without economic interest, but for which I had the opportunity to make some original observations on its life cycle in Saharan environment. These research activities resulted in 95 publications in scientific peer-reviewed journals, 56 books or book chapters, and 99 conference papers. And since there is always a need for projects, I am still working with many colleagues on an Encyclopaedia of Pest Orthoptera of the World which is expected to be published soon.
1983 Senegal – Working in Dakar with the staff of the local Desert Locust Control Organization (OCLALAV).
Based on the results of this diverse research, I undertook substantial work on applied research and have contributed to the development of preventive control strategies, in particular against the Mato Grosso Locust in Brazil (in cooperation with Embrapa, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation), the Desert locust in Africa in cooperation with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the Migratory locust in Madagascar (with FAO, the National Center for Applied Research on Rural Development FOFIFA, and the Malagasy Center for Locust Control). For the Desert Locust, from 1997 to 2011, I have been involved in FAO's EMPRES program to strengthen preventive control: from program formulation missions, support for fundraising from international donors, research on sustainability of funding, to participation in the planning of program activities (including research activities), and monitoring of implementation as a member of the Consultative Committee. I also contributed, for FAO and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to various studies and expert missions that led to a major overhaul of the institutions in charge of preventive control of this species in West and North Africa. I continue to be interested in such preventive strategies to better understand the obstacles - sociological, financial, legal - to the implementation of effective control. These activities on the applied aspects of locust and grasshopper control resulted in numerous technical and consultation reports as well as many popularization papers. I often become little apprehensive by the thousands of pages that I have written, sometimes they are useful, but sometimes they are purely administrative.
1984 Australia - In the outback to learn a little more about the local locust.
Along with these various aspects of research, I conducted many training and teaching activities in France and abroad, ranging from the technician to engineer level, and it's always a pleasure for me to meet former students on one or the other of my various trips. I also supervised many Master’s and PhD students for Montpellier University and at various foreign universities. I assumed the responsibility of ESAT's Crop Protection Department [5] in Montpellier from 1982 to 1984, and I created and ran for several years (from 1983 to 1988) the training in acridology at the plant protection training department (DFPV) of the AGRHYMET [6] Center in Niamey, Niger. Finally, in recent years, I had the pleasure to teach courses in the field of acridology at the Institute Hassan 2, Agadir from 2008 to 2010. And of course, I must not forget the multiple occasions when I engaged in "on the job" training, provided throughout my career during my many missions abroad.
1987 Chad - Near Mao, north of Lake Chad, conducting some experiments on new pesticides for Desert locust control.
All of this research work and training has, of course, been carried out for the most part, within the framework of CIRAD‘s mandate for scientific research for agricultural development, training and knowledge shared for the benefit of developing countries. From 1997 and for almost 15 years, until the end of my career in 2011, the management of a research unit entitled "Locust and grasshopper ecology and control" allowed me - with the team I had the privilege to lead - to face even more concretely the challenges posed by the control of pest locusts and grasshoppers, issues so important for food security in many countries of the world, especially in Africa. Cooperation with our partners in developing countries has been fundamental to me and I have always tried to respond as relevantly as possible to their concerns. I remember with fondness the many bonds of friendship and trust built up over the years, with fellow entomologists in these developing countries, as well as with many local populations, rich or poor.
1991 Niger – In the desertic Tamesna area, working on the Desert locust.
At this point, I realize how lucky I was not to be confined to a lab - even though I was able to undertake various interesting studies there - but to be able to travel the planet, to compare species, their ecology, to feel, smell, breathe entomological problems each time anew; to be confronted with new landscapes, colleagues, populations ... and never to start from an a priori position, but to think about the novelty of a problem and the means of solving it, a position not so obvious as it can appear. But what exciting investigations! At this recent congress in Agadir, Jeffrey A. Lockwood revived, through the opera he created, the search for the "murderer" of the rocky mountain locust in the United States. For my part, I also had to solve many puzzles. One of the last, and not least, was the mysterious outbreaks of the Mato Grosso locust in Brazil suddenly appeared in the early 1980s. I cannot resist the pleasure of sharing some of my many displacements and my joys from that time when I was trying to understand the origin of this plague.
1991 In the Sahara (North Niger), trying to get the coordinates from a primitive GPS. Just wait for a few minutes and data from the satellites arrives.
I arrived in Campinas in the state of São Paolo at the end of the summer of 1991 to work in Embrapa's satellite remote sensing center (NMA), which is developing applications in remote sensing field. With LANDSAT satellite images, we hoped to map the habitats of the locusts concerned - identified as belonging to the species Rhammatocerus schistocercoides- and to analyze the relations with the development of agriculture in these regions of the states of Mato Grosso and Rondonia at the southern limit of the Amazon rainforest. Indeed, in these regions, from the 1970s, new farmlands were developed and planted with rice, sugar cane, soybeans ... very quickly outbreaks of locusts appeared and effected the harvest. The hypothesis prevailing at the time was that the extension of mechanized crops had altered the natural balance, leading to locust outbreaks. The new farmers had only received what they deserved!
1991 Niger - Working on the Desert locust biotopes in the Saharan area, around 200 km West from Arlit.
With my Brazilian colleagues, I would show that it was not the case, far from it. Exploring relentlessly the regions concerned, especially on the Chapada dos Parecis, an isolated area of Mato Grosso from where the outbreaks seemed to come, I interviewed many people who were in the region during the first half of the 20thcentury: former missionaries Jesuits and Salesians, Indians Parecis and Nambiquaras, gold diggers, old farmers and tradesmen, latex collectors (the "seringueros"), breeders, all pioneers of the colonization of Mato Grosso. I was also looking in the literature for stories about Brazil's explorations. I thus discovered, through their writings, the anthropologist Edgar Roquette Pinto and the famous Marshal Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon known for his explorations of Mato Grosso and Western Amazonia. I thus accumulated a set of facts showing that the outbreaks of this locust in the states of Mato Grosso and Rondonia had always existed. The locusts of this species R. schistocercoideshave been there since the dawn of time. The evidence, obtained orally or in ancient works, clearly indicated that their outbreaks were a very old phenomenon. The Nambiquaras Indians were also very fond of them, as reported by Claude Levi-Strauss in his famous book “Tristes Tropiques”. Among the Parecis Indians, locusts are an integral part of their myths of the creation of the world, thus showing the recurrent importance of these insects in the region. Evidence accumulated little by little. The prevailing theories of the origin of the outbreaks had to be completely revised, especially those involving the accelerated development of agriculture since the 1980s. In reality, the new farmers had settled in the territory of the locusts and reaped the consequences!
1992 Campinas, Brazil – Studying nymphs of the Mato Grosso locust with Ivo Pierozzi Jr., a Brazilian colleague from Embrapa.
Little by little, and while the knowledge was almost non-existent at my arrival, I managed to understand the biology of this insect, its ecology and what were its preferred habitats, especially for laying. It is naturally in these laying areas that this insect reproduced and swarmed. The new farmers had, of course, planted their crops on the richest soils, leaving the most sandy and least fertile areas as natural vegetation and as wildlife reserves. It was precisely on these sandy soils that the locust multiplied ... and then invaded the crops in the immediate vicinity. We had simply created a juxtaposition of cultivated areas and breeding areas of the locust. Agriculture had in no way favored the insect but had settled on its territory and kept relatively untouched, the breeding habitats of the insect. The problem was then inevitable and occurred from the first harvests. Farmers already had many problems, no need to add to them by accusing them of an ecological imbalance, probably real, but which had nothing to do with the outbreaks of locusts. Forgive me for a moment’s lack of modesty: at the time I was more than a little proud of my research and its results.
1997 Brasil - Studying the behavior of Rhammatocerus schistocercoides hopper bands in the
cerrado of Mato Grosso.
Another anecdote I like to report is that of my first contact with Africa and the tropical world. In 1969, after a year spent at the University of Paris-Orsay specializing in entomology (and especially on locusts), I flew to Madagascar where I had to carry out research on the migratory locust. Arriving in Antananarivo, a car took me to the "Great South". After 2 days of road and track, I finally arrived in the extreme south, in Betioky, headquarters of the National Center for locust control. But that was not my final destination! Another track day took me to a rather isolated place called Bepeha, located on the Horombe plateau, about 30 km from a small town called Betroka. My local manager who had accompanied me until then, left me on the spot with an old Hotchkiss jeep, a Renault 4, 4 laborers and some cans of gasoline. My field base to conduct the work that I had to undertake on the solitary phase of the Malagasy migratory locust, was reduced to a few tents near occasional trees. A small "comfortable" house was then built with mud and cow dung. The water was pumped from a spring a hundred meters away. The nearest native village was about a kilometer away, and everywhere around was the grassy, flat and empty expanses of the Horombe Plateau. Having arrived at the end of the dry season, I barely had time to create a firewall around my camp, before a bushfire would burn all the surrounding vegetation. I managed to save the camp ... and my thesis work! I suppose that the purpose of such a site was also to test the resilience to field work, in somewhat spartan conditions, of a young student fresh out of Paris University and who had no preparations for work in the bush. I passed the test successfully and my tropical career was launched!
2004 Sudan - A coffee in the street somewhere in Khartoum.
These are of course only two anecdotes. I was fortunate to be able to get excited about many other issues around the world. Unfortunately, all this work was inevitably strewn with moments of anguish and emotion: the attack of my camp by brigands in the Sahara in 1991 where a colleague was unfortunately killed, a helicopter crash the same year also in the Sahara in the middle of nowhere, a peasant revolt in Madagascar in 1971 and the attack on the small town of Betioky, headquarters of the national center for locust control... but also intense moments such as a dinner with the emir of Kanem in Chad on the terrace of his palace, a meeting with the President of Senegal on the occasion of the Desert locust invasion in 2004, the discovery of a dinosaur skeleton in the Saharan Tamesna, a head-to-head encounter with a deer and the discovery of recent traces of the passage of a panther while I was alone in the heart of the Brazilian Cerrado. Many moments of emotion where I happened to recall my reading as a youth the "Strange Safari” by Margaret Ruthin, or "The Mighty Orinoco" by Jules Verne. The enthusiasm of youth is a driving force to be cultivated throughout one's life. That's all that I wish my younger colleagues.
2005 Canmore, Canada - I take the presidency of the Orthopterists’ Society and I receive the traditional hat from the hands of Ted Cohn, former president.
I will not finish this brief article of memories without thanking the Orthopterists’ Society for the confidence it has given me over the years in various positions of responsibility, for the wealth of scientific exchanges, for friendship developed with many colleagues, for the good times spent together in all corners of the world. Our society is a source of richness in the scientific world. Let's continue to live life and support our Society with dedication, enthusiasm, pleasure, and love.
Michel Lecoq
[1] Groupement d'étude et de recherche pour le développement de l'agronomie tropicale
[2] The French agricultural research and international cooperation organization working for the sustainable development of tropical and Mediterranean regions
[3] Embrapa Genetic Resources and Biotechnology
[4] International Union for Conservation of Nature
[5] Higher School of Tropical Agronomy
[6] Specialized Institution of the Permanent Inter-State Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS)
