I was honored to participate in groundbreaking experiments just published in Science (Sayin et al. 2025) that have revolutionized our understanding of the behavioral interactions underlying Desert locust collective movement in migratory hopper bands. The work was conducted in part during my sabbatical with wonderful hosts and collaborators at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour at the University of Konstanz in 2023.

The paper combines field data along with an awesome combination of virtual reality experiments, large scale collective movement trials and modeling to show that Desert locust juveniles rely primarily on visual cues to maintain coordinated group movement while mass moving on the ground in hopper bands. Virtual reality experiments clearly showed that individuals do not explicitly align their movement with nearby other individuals – contrary to expectations. Instead, they simply follow those in front that are moving away and will do so independent of their local density. In other words, locust collective movement depends on the quality rather than quantity of visual stimuli they receive from other locusts in front of them to maintain coordinated movement while marching in a band.

Camille Buhl and Steve Simpson provided an excellent accompanying Perspectives article: “Virtual reality rewrites rules of the swarm”.

Check out the video abstract above highlighting the key results and showcasing some of the killer technology used – all served up with a tasty backing track from The Four Pigs. Link to video abstract on YouTube is here.

The story has been picked up by several news outlets as well. Here’s a nice feature article from phys.org: “Scientists rewrite the rules of swarming locusts“.

Congrats to Andie Miller and Eli James who won 1st and 2nd place, respectively, in the PhD student presentation competition at the 2025 Beltwide Cotton Conference held in New Orleans, LA from 14-19 January.

Both Andie and Eli presented their ongoing research as part of the Insect Research and Control Conference during the Beltwide meeting. Their award winning presentations are listed below:

• Miller, A.C., Behmer, S.T. & Sword, G.A. (2025) Ecological Consequences of Strain Divergence in the Fall Armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda)
• James, E., Siquera de Cuhna, J.C. & Sword, G.A. (2025) Preliminary Risk Assessment of Cotton Suitability as a Host Plant for the Central American Locust.

 

 

Congratulations to Mason Clark and Audelia Mechti who both won 2nd place in their respective sections as part of the 10 minute paper student competition at this year’s Annual Meeting of the Entomological Society of America held in Phoenix, AZ from Nov 10-14, 2024!

Both gave excellent talks reporting their recent work in cotton gene editing and locust collective behavior. Official publications on both topics are in the works.

Audelia’s presentation in the Systematics, Evolution & Biodiversity (SysEB): Behavior section:

• Mechti, A.M.C., Varma, V., Walton, K.C. & Sword, G.A. (2024) To march or not to march: Quantifying patterns of collective movement across swarming and non-swarming Schistocerca species.

Mason’s presentation in the Physiology, Biochemistry & Toxicology (PBT): Genetics, Molecular and Cellular Biology section:

• Clark, M.C., Sword, G.A. & Behmer, S.T. (2024) Modifying phytosterol profiles in upland cotton reduces the performance of cotton aphids

Congratulations to Andie Miller and Mason Clark who won 1st place in their respective categories in the 10-minute Student Paper Competition at this year’s annual meeting of the Entomological Society of America in National Harbor, Maryland. They both delivered excellent talks presenting some very cool data from their ongoing PhD projects.

Mason’s 1st place presentation in the Physiology, Biochemistry & Toxicology (PBT): Biocontrol and IPM section:

• Clark, M.C., Sword, G.A., Zhu-Salzman, K. & Behmer, S.T. (2023) Modifying phytosterol production in upland cotton reduces the performance of insect herbivores.

Andie’s 1st place presentation in the Systematics, Evolution & Biodiversity (SysEB): Behavior section:

• Miller, A., Tessnow, A.E., Nagoshi, R., Meaghar, R. & Sword, G.A. (2023) Evidence for allochronic reproductive isolation between R- and C- strains of the fall armyworm in Texas and Florida populations.

 

Shout out to fellow BPRI member, Chris Brennan, from the Behmer Lab who also took home a 1st place prize to complete the TAMU EEB student sweep at ESA!

Texas A&M AgriLife Today just posted a feature story about our ongoing efforts to use genome editing to find new ways to protect plants from insect pests. In addition to being very cool science in collaboration with Anjel Helms (A&M Entomology) and Mike Thomson (A&M Crop Genome Editing Lab), the project also serves as an excellent example of public-industry partnership. Cotton Inc. has been involved from the very beginning providing the initial support to get the project off the ground, support a graduate student, and collect some initial data (thanks, Mason!). This allowed the project to grow to the point where we applied for and received a grant to carry on from the USDA – National Institute for Agriculture that is being jointly funded by the Cotton Board. At every step, this project has benefited from the support and feedback from the cotton industry to help address major issues in cotton production with the goal of providing sustainable environmental and economic benefits across the board (no pun intended!).