Science 26 November 2004:
Vol. 306 no. 5701 pp. 1488-1489
DOI: 10.1126/science.1106582

• Perspective

ECOLOGY

Oh the Locusts Sang, Then They Dropped Dead

1. Richard S. Ostfeld and
2. Felicia Keesing[HN14]

+ Author Affiliations

1. The authors are in the Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, NY 12545, USA. E-mail: rostfeld@ecostudies.org
2. F. Keesing is also in the Biology Department, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504, USA.

Summary

Seventeen-year cicadas of the species Magicicada spend most of their lives underground feeding on xylem from the roots of trees. But every 17 years they emerge in vast numbers, mate, lay eggs, and die. In their Perspective, Ostfeld and Keesing discuss a new study (Yang) demonstrating that the cicada carcasses provide a rich source of nitrogen, which is released by soil microbes and results in an increase in the nitrogen content and seed size of American bellflowers, an understory plant.

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The Bob Dylan song “Day of the Locusts” refers to the cacophony from the 1970 emergence of 17-year cicadas (Magicicada spp.), which happened to coincide with his acceptance of an honorary degree from Princeton University. These cicadas, which dutifully reappeared aboveground in 1987 and then again this year, are a quintessential case of a resource pulse—a transient, multiannual episode of resource superabundance. On page 1565 of this issue, Yang (3) [HN3] describes the ramifying impacts that massive pulses of cicada...