A Review of the Biology, Ecology, and Management of the South American Locust, Schistocerca cancellata (Serville, 1838), and Future Prospects

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The subject being addressed is very important. The MS is well written and the topic is adequately supported and presented. Some technical questions or comments were made on the MS; form corrections are suggested. Please check the editorial guidelines for the References section.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Reviewer 1. We have included all suggestions by Reviewer 1

Sincerely,

Eduardo Trumper (O behalf of all co-authors)

Reviewer 2 Report

Review of Trumper et al. “Management of the South American Locust, Schistocerca cancellata (Serville 1838): Past, present and future. 

Agronomy

Overarching comments:

1. In this manuscript the authors have reviewed the biology and ecology of the South American Locust, Schistocerca cancellata (Serville 1838), in addition to the circumstances surrounding the management and control of the species during years when population irruptions can cause damage to agricultural production.  Overall, it’s a very useful review of an economically important pest species and the authors should be commended for offering an important perspective on the way in which standard funding/resource allocations can impact long term ecological programs.  The ebb and flow of resources for research, monitoring and management of pest species is problematic throughout the world and I wonder if this review would benefit from a contrast/comparison with locust management models in other parts of the world? 
2. I note there is no graphical abstract given with the paper and the review may benefit from this.
3. My main overarching concern is that the preventative management program alluded to in the manuscript seems to be discussed as the sole reason for the decline in populations and therefore the reduction in funding/resource base for monitoring and control (e.g. line 36 -Introduction). SAL would be unique if they were not also influenced by climate and I would be surprised if the environmental conditions experienced during extended periods (60 years in between plagues) did not contribute in some way to overall population levels. It would be pertinent to include a discussion of the impact of climate/climate variability (and other populations drivers) on populations levels, preferably with the inclusion of population monitoring data, and their concomitant effect of the need for control, in the review.  Also of interest, would be data quantifying population levels in years requiring intervention/treatment and those years where no control action was required to sustain the case that it was the lack of population monitoring control infrastructure alone that was responsible for the resurgence of this species.   
4. The title needs a slight amendment to better reflect the contents. By definition, a review of a specific topic takes into account the “past” and “present” and should also make suggestions about future directions which makes these words in the title slightly redundant.  I would suggest rewording to “A review of biology, ecology and management of the SAL …………….. with suggestion for future management an research” or something similar. 

Specific comments

L53.  Please refer to the journal’s author guidelines for the correct formatting for citing personal communications, including in the reference section.

L76.  Locusts are not grasshoppers, but they are in the Acrididae.  Delete “are grasshopper”.

L 100 – L112 “Colouration”.  This section would benefit greatly by the authors providing colour images for each of the various locusts stages discussed. 

L115-116 delete “in constant movement”

L117 replace “hectic” with erratic

L144.  Reword to “female adults range from 3.9-6.6 cm in length and males from 2.8-4.9 cm.”L158 Section 2.2  Is there anyway to add a figure/map here to better describe/outline the areas under discussion, or at least to annotate Figure to reflect the same? 

L208. “Life Cycle Parameters”.  Both in this section, and in the preceding sections, a number of parameters are given that either differ/don’t differ between the gregarious and solitarious phases.  It would be informative if these are tabulated , with the reference and included in the manuscript.

L242.  Replace “eruption” with “irruption”

L252.  Again, tabulated data contrasting population levels and control efforts would be beneficial here. 

L309.  Replace “not been tackled” with “is so far unstudied”

L393.  “the wide fluctuation in size”?

L402. Delete “many”

L.425  I don’t think that this heading adds anything to the overall text.  I would delete and just join this small section of text with the one above.

L442 Section 3.3 could be changed to “Advances in locust management”

L553.  Again, pleas refer to the author guidelines concerning the correct way to reference personal communications. 

Section 4.  L 578.  This section requires significant revision.  The section itself seems to try a create a narrative, rather than lay out in unambiguous scientific language what actually happened during this period of locust management.  Terms such as “many swarms” and “some swarms” do not adequately quantify the starting population, what rate of population increase result  Moreover, there’s no information (data) given, or analysed appropriately, regarding the environmental conditions that may have triggered this populations increase, or what the quantitative result of population suppression actually was.  Consequently, I have not reviewed this section in any detail. 

L672.  This first sentence is redundant –delete. 

Section 4.2 L 617 – 767.  This section contains a lot of information concerning potential recommendations going forward in Argentina.  I would argue that this requires some context concerning current capabilities and that the recommendations should be listed/numbered in a way in which each recommendation builds on the previous one. This will make it a lot easier to

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Reviewer 2: Please see attachment

Sincerely,

Eduardo Trumper (On behalf of all co-authors)

Author Response File: Author Response.docx