Our Living Rfsimrces — Invertebrates 



165 



breeds only during winter or in the early spring 

 and might still turn up when an etTort is made 

 to collect it in early spring. The only relative in 

 this genus (E. phena.x Otte) is known from a sin- 

 gle male collected at Big Cedar in the Kiamichi 

 Mountains of Oklahoma. Searches for this 

 species have also been unsuccessful; again, it is 

 possible that the species overwinters in the adult 

 stage and therefore is not present during normal 

 grasshopper breeding times. 



Mountain Islands 



Some species of grasshopper are known 

 only from mountain tops (sky islands). In the 

 East, some Mekmophis species are known from 

 single balds (grassy mountain summits) in the 

 Appalachian region (three new species are 

 presently being described; Otte. unpublished 

 data). In the western United States members of 

 the Montanus group are also known only from 

 single localities (A.B. Gumey, unpublished 

 data). Surveys of mountains in Colorado, New 

 Mexico, Arizona. Utah, and Nevada showed 

 that some of these species have not yet been 

 described and are believed to occur only on sin- 

 gle mountains. 



Within their limited ranges on mountains, 

 the grasshopper species are further limited by 

 environmental disturbance. I have encountered 

 many overgrazed mountain meadows, some- 

 times even highly isolated ones surrounded by 

 forest. These differ from ungrazed meadows 

 chiefly in the height of the vegetation and the 

 number of plant species there, and consequent- 

 ly in the incidence of short-winged grasshop- 

 pers. Collections from high mountain passes, 

 where meadows are partly protected from cattle 

 by fences along the road, show a clear effect of 

 vegetation length on diversity; in the protected 

 areas, nonflying grasshopper species are pre- 

 sent, sometimes in large numbers, but are 

 absent in grazed areas, while flying species, 

 which have wide distributions (weedy species), 

 are common. The principal reason for the dif- 

 ference appears to be that short-winged, nonfly- 

 ing species are highly vulnerable to bird preda- 

 tion. and without protective vegetation are 

 unable to survive. 



Pleistocene Islands in Northern Florida 



The northern half of Florida contains a num- 

 ber of habitats that remained exposed as islands 

 during interglacial periods. Several grasshopper 

 groups have species associated with these for- 

 mer islands and species" ranges are highly 

 restricted (Hubbell 1932). These areas are also 



ideal for farming and therefore have been great- 

 ly altered during the last 50-80 years. It is 

 extremely likely that some species never col- 

 lected were lost. It remains to be seen which 

 species collected earlier this century still exist. 



Management Implications 



Large differences exist in range sizes 

 between species that can fly and those that can- 

 not (Otte 1979). In the latter group are numer- 

 ous species known from a single or a few local- 

 ities. Most of these inhabit island habitats (iso- 

 lated bogs, prairie openings within the eastem 

 forests, balds on the Appalachian range, moun- 

 tain meadows on western mountaintops, ham- 

 mocks in Florida, and perhaps coastal islands 

 along the East coast). Many species in these 

 regions have probably already been lost. Others 

 can be saved by creating new sanctuaries and 

 properly modifying existing ones. Within such 

 regions it should be possible to set aside small 

 sanctuaries or strings of sanctuaries from which 

 cattle and other grazing mammals are excluded. 

 Such sanctuaries already exist along highways 

 where cattle are kept away from roadsides and 

 railways. 



References 



Ball, E.D.. E.R. Tinkham. R. Flock, and C.T. Vorliies. 1942. 

 The grasshoppers and other Orthoptera ot Arizona. Tech. 

 Bull. Arizona College of Agriculture 93:275-373. 



Cantrall, I.J. 1943. The ecology of the Orthoptera and 

 Dermaptera of the George Reserve, Michigan. 

 Miscellaneous Publ. of the University of Michigan 

 Museum of Zoology 54:1-184. 



Huhbell. T.H. 1932. A revision of the piier group of the 

 North American genus Melmwphis. with reinarks on the 

 taxonomic value of the concealed male genitalia in the 

 Cyrtacanthacridinae (Acrididae). University of Michigan 

 Museum of Zoology Miscellaneous Publ. 23:1-64. 



Lockwood, J. A., and L.D. DeBrey. 1990. A solution for the 

 sudden and unexplained extinction of the Rocky 

 Mountain locust. Melanoplus spreliis (Walsh). 

 Environmental Entomology 19:1194-1205. 



Otte. D. 1970. A comparative study of communicative 

 behavior in grasshoppers. University of Michigan 

 Museum of Zoology Miscellaneous Publ. 141:1-168. 



Otte. D. 1976. Species richness patterns of New World 

 desert grasshoppers in relation to plant diversity. Journal 

 of Biogeography 3:197-207. 



Otte, D. 1979. Biogeographic patterns in flight capacity of 

 Nearctic grasshoppers (Orthoptera. Acrididae). 

 Entomological News 90(4):153-158. 



Otte. D. 1981. The North American grasshoppers. Vol 1. 

 Acrididae: Gomphocerinae and Acridinae. Harvard 

 University Press. Cambridge, MA. 275 pp. 



Otte. D. 1994. The Orthoptera species file: computer cata- 

 log to the genera and species of world grasshoppers. 

 Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. 

 Unpublished data base. 



For further information: 



Daniel Otte 



Academy of Natural Sciences 



Department of Entomology 



1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway 



Philadelphia. PA 19103 



