Escape Behavior of the Formosan Subterranean Termi

Authors: Bal Krishna Gautam Gregg Henderson

Publish Date: 2011/06/30

Volume: 25, Issue: 1, Pages: 70-79

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Abstract

Disturbances to monitors and baits have often been noted as a confounding factor for the success of termite baiting systems We studied escape behavior of Coptotermes formosanus Shiraki to a food source disturbance in the laboratory Four peripheral chambers connected to the central food chamber through tubes served as escape routes from which escape patterns escape and return times and differences in soldier and worker responses were recorded We used two sand conditions moist and dry to test whether favorable versus unfavorable conditions change escape behavior The post disturbance responses were video recorded for 1 h C formosanus quickly escaped from the central chamber when disturbed The time taken to reach the maximum number of termites that escaped ranged from 20 s to 210 s followed by a gradual return to the disturbed chamber The majority of the escapees returned to the disturbed area within a few minutes after evacuation in both dry and wet sand conditions A significantly higher percentage of termites escaped in wet sand arenas 43 than in the dry sand arenas 31 Our experiments demonstrate that C formosanus is highly unlikely to abandon bait stations for extensive periods of time as a result of mechanical disturbances regardless of habitat qualityWe sincerely thank Yanxi Liu for helping in the experimental set up video recording and manually recording of the data We are very thankful to Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry for providing partial fund for this study This manuscript is approved for publication by the Director of the Louisiana Agricultural Experiment Station as manuscript no 20112346253

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