With Dr. David Bello

Professor of History\, Director of East As ian Studies\, Washington and Lee University

This lecture considers so me implications of Niche Construction Theory—the notion that life forms can adaptively modify their surroundings—for an environmental analysis of atte mpts to control locusts in cereal fields in north China during the eighteen th and nineteenth centuries during China’s last dynasty\, the Qing (1644-19 12). In the process human social structures were altered to deal with contr adictory demands of timely interventions in the locust life cycle and in ce real cultivation to selectively deny a niche to the insects while maintaini ng one for the plants.

The empire’s agricultural niches\, however\, p rovided not only a habitat for human-cultivar interaction\, but also\, inad vertently\, one for locusts. As an anthropogenic construct\, the high conce ntration of cereals unintentionally promoted swarming behavior in locusts b y attracting large concentrations of normally solitary insects. Swarming is stimulated by frequent hind-leg receptor contact between individual locust s that releases the neurotransmitter serotonin (a process called “density-d etermined phase polymorphism”)\, which occurs at much higher rates where fo od is concentrated. Consequently\, cereal fields also maximized the insect yield. Fields\, as manifestations of human “behavioral plasticity” or “exte nded phenotype” or “ecosystem engineering\,” actually created a niche confl ict between people and locusts largely determined by the insects’ lifecycle to which humans were forced to respond because of their dependency on cere al cultivars.

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