Préférences Alimentaires de Schistocerca gregaria (Forsk., 1775) à l'état Solitaire dans les Biotopes du Sud Algérien

Abstract The Desert Locust, Schistocerca gregaria (Forsk., 1775), in gregarious phase has long been known for its great polyphagia and broad variety of attacked crops, This polyphagia seems more limited in the solitary phase, Not doing damage in this phase, its feeding regimen is poorly known. The present work treats qualitative and quantitative evaluation of food preferences of S. gregaria in the solitary state in various biotopes of the Algerian Sahara. The qualitative evaluation was done by comparing the diversity of plant species in the acridid's biotopes with the diversity of the plant species identified in feces of individuals captured on the ground. The quantitative evaluation was done by comparing the frequencies of the plant species observed in feces, with their abundances in the corresponding biotope. The frequency of a consumed plant species then could be estimated by the ratio of the number of imagos having consumed the plant species to the number of imagos present in the biotope. The disparit...