LUBILOSA

Key takeaways

LUBILOSA belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect LUBILOSA to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of LUBILOSA from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

LUBILOSA was the name of a research programme that aimed at developing a biological alternative to the chemical control of locusts. This name is an acronym of the French title of the programme: Lutte Biologique contre les Locustes et les Sauteriaux (biological control of locusts and grasshoppers). During its 13-year life (November 1989 to December 2002), the programme identified an isolate of an entomopathogenic fungus belonging to the genus Metarhizium and virulent to locusts, and went through all the necessary steps to develop the commercial biopesticide product Green Muscle based on its spores.

Collaborators The programme was conceived by Chris Prior and David Greathead of the International Institute of Biological Control (IIBC), a former research institute of CAB International that was based at Silwood Park in the UK at that time. IIBC requested and obtained the collaboration of the former Biological Control Centre for Africa in Cotonou, Benin, that was owned and managed by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). When IIBC asked for financial support from the Dutch Directoraat Generaal voor Internationale Samenwerking (DGIS: Directorate General of International Cooperation), DGIS contributed by paying for a Dutch locust expert based at the Département de Formation en Protection des Végétaux (DFPV: Department of Crop Protection Training) of the AGRHYMET Regional Centre (ARC) in Niamey, Niger, which is part of the Comité permanent Inter-états de Lutte contre la Sécheresse dans le Sahel (CILSS: Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel). Since DFPV was given its own budget within LUBILOSA, it became a full partner within the programme. For a number of years, LUBILOSA collaborated with GTZ's locust programme. Permanent collaboration was established with the crop protection agencies of Niger, Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Senegal and The Gambia.

Donors The LUBILOSA programme was supported financially by the following donors:

CIDA: Canadian International Development Agency DFID: Department for International Development, UK DGIS: Dutch Directorate General of International Cooperation SDC: Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation USAID: United States Agency for International Development Over the life of the programme, these donors contributed UK£10,200,000 (approximately US$17,000,000 at the time).

Four phases The LUBILOSA programme has been funded in phases of three or four years each:

First phase 1990–1992 Second phase 1993–1995 Third phase 1996–1998 Fourth phase 1999–2002

First phase The project was started late in 1989, with Chris Prior and David Greathead obtaining funding and forming a team to develop a biological means of controlling locusts and grasshoppers. While examining the various options for biological control, it soon became apparent that oil formulations of the spores of certain fungi belonging to the form phylum Deuteromycota (Anamorphic fungi) offered the most promising option. Such fungi will grow on artificial substrates and so can be mass-produced relatively quickly in large quantities. Their spores are lipophilic and therefore suspend much more readily in oils than in water. As most locust control is carried out using oil formulations at ultra-low volume (ULV) rates of application, developing an oil formulation of fungal spores enabled operators to use the same equipment for applying a chemical pesticide and maximise efficacy. Usually, fungi are most active under moist conditions and in early attempts to use them as control agents, they were therefore applied in water formulations. However, the results in practice were often disappointing and the approach was largely abandoned during most of the 20th century. When interest in microbial control was revived, water formulations of fungi started to be used successfully in greenhouses, but the results in open fields continued to disappoint. In the 1980s, Prior discovered that some anamorphic fungi are more effective when applied in oil. During the first phase of LUBILOSA, the technical feasibility of using such oil formulations against locusts was demonstrated in the laboratory, then field cage and "arena" trials. An extensive survey was launched in West Africa and the Arabian Peninsula to look for isolates virulent to locusts and grasshoppers, because few such isolates were available in public collections. The survey made use of a network of collaborators and came up with some 180 isolates, many of which belonged to Metarhizium acridum, some to other Metarhizium species and to Beauveria bassiana with a few records of Syngliocladium acridiorum (syn. Sorosporella). Laboratory screening of these isolates showed that M. acridum was easily the most virulent species under warm conditions (30 °C), and confirmed the selection of isolate IMI 330189 for further development. Subsequent trials in cages and arenas confirmed that oil formulations were infective even under very dry conditions. IMI 330189 and similar isolates were assigned to Metarhizium flavoviride in early papers, then Metarhizium anisopliae var. acridum, but are now described as Metarhizium acridum (Driver & Milner) J.F. Bisch., Rehner & Humber.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with LUBILOSA

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what LUBILOSA claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to LUBILOSA before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about LUBILOSA ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of LUBILOSA

In research: LUBILOSA appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses LUBILOSA in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: LUBILOSA is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Biological pest control, Insect control, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for LUBILOSA outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study LUBILOSA in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what LUBILOSA means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain LUBILOSA out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is LUBILOSA in simple terms?

LUBILOSA was the name of a research programme that aimed at developing a biological alternative to the chemical control of locusts. This name is an acronym of the French title of the programme: Lutte Biologique contre les Locustes et les Sauteriaux (biological control of locusts and grasshoppers).

Why does LUBILOSA matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study LUBILOSA?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on LUBILOSA.