Parental effects on the behaviour and colouration of nymphs of the desert locust Schistocerca gregaria

The behavioural phase status of hatchling Schistocerca gregaria Forskål has been quantified using logistic regression, following treatments in which maternal and paternal phase, density during mating and oviposition, and nymphal rearing density were varied. All treatments (having a crowd-reared mother, a crowd-reared father, parents which were crowded only for the period of mating and oviposition, or being reared from birth in a crowd) had a marked gregarizing effect on the behaviour and colour of hatchlings. Such effects have important implications for the generation of locust swarms.