Associative learning and locust feeding: evidence for a 'learned hunger' for protein
1990
Simpson, S.J. | White, P.R.
Experiments are described that show, first, that locusts, Locusta migratoria (L.), are able to associate an odour paired with a diet and the protein content of that diet and, second, that the behavioural response shown to the odour depends specifically on the insects' state of protein deprivation. Nymphs were trained for 2 days with free access to two artificial foods that were similar in all respects except that one lacked digestible carbohydrate (the P diet) and the other lacked protein (the C diet) and each was paired with one of two distinctive secondary plant odours. The locusts were then fed for 4 h on either the P diet or the C diet with neither odour present, after which time the insects were deficient in digestible carbohydrate or protein, respectively. The nymphs were then observed in a test chamber with the two odours present. Those insects deprived of protein responded very differently to the two odours, approaching the source of the odour previously paired with the P diet significantly more often than that previously paired with the C diet. Locusts deprived of digestible carbohydrate, on the other hand, did not show any discrimination between the two odours. Further experiments showed that both odours were repellent to naive locusts and that the strong tendency, shown by protein-deprived nymphs, to approach the odour previously paired with the P diet was due to a reduction in the repellency of that odour, combined with maintained repellency of the odour previously paired with the C diet.
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