ABSTRACT
Grasshoppers are major agricultural pests in nearly every continent in the world, and are the most important invertebrate pest on rangeland in the western United States. Rangeland, however, has a relatively low economic return per unit area; thus, intensive grasshopper monitoring and expensive control programs are usually unwarranted. Millions of hectares in the western United States are surveyed annually for grasshopper densities. The best method for sampling rangeland grasshoppers would give accurate population estimates of nymphal and adult populations, be inexpensive to implement, and be easy to use. Most rangeland pest management programs consider characteristics of the entire grasshopper species complex rather than individual species. The distribution of the grasshopper complex on Colorado shortgrass prairie was defined to facilitate determination of optimal sampling strategies. The dispersion of individual species of grasshoppers within the complex can vary considerably. Information on the spatial distribution of specific grasshopper species is minimal.
