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Studies on grasshopper diets have historically employed a range of methodologies, each with certain advantages and disadvantages. For example, some methodologies are qualitative instead of quantitative. Others require long experimental periods or examine population-level effects, only. In this study, we used real-time PCR to examine diets of individual grasshoppers. The method has the advantage of being both fast and quantitative. Using two grasshopper species,  Oedaleus asiaticus  and  Dasyhippus barbipes , we designed ITS primer sequences for their three main host plants,  Stipa krylovii, Leymus chinensis  and  Cleistogenes squarrosa  and used real-time PCR method to test diet structure both qualitatively and quantitatively. The lowest detection efficiency of the three grass species was ~80% with a strong correlation between actual and PCR-measured food intake. We found that  Oedaleus asiaticus  maintained an unchanged diet structure across grasslands with different grass communities. By comparison,  Dasyhippus barbipes  changed its diet structure. These results revealed why  O. asiaticus  distribution is mainly confined to  Stipa -dominated grassland, and  D. barbipes  is more widely distributed across Inner Mongolia. Overall, real-time PCR was shown to be a useful tool for investigating grasshopper diets, which in turn offers some insight into grasshopper distributions and improved pest management.

Quantitative analysis of diet structure by real-time PCR, reveals different feeding patterns by two dominant grasshopper species