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Subterranean termite colony elimination can be achieved even when only a small proportion of foragers feed upon a CSI bait

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Abstract

Termite bait products that contain chitin synthesis inhibitors (CSIs) protect structures from subterranean termites via colony elimination. A hallmark of CSI baits is their dose-independent lethal time, as workers exposed to a CSI do not die until they initiate the molting process. Due to this mode of action and termite behaviors such as trophallaxis and cannibalism, a relatively small quantity of ingested CSI can spread throughout an entire colony before secondary repellency or avoidance behaviors occur, ultimately resulting in total colony elimination. In the field, only a portion of a subterranean termite colony actively forages upon a CSI bait at any given time, suggesting that only a relatively small proportion of workers may need to feed upon a CSI bait for a colony to be eliminated. In the present study, we used varying proportions of workers from whole four-year-old laboratory-reared Coptotermes gestroi (Wasmann) colonies (~ 62,500 termites/colony on average) to determine what proportion of workers need to feed upon a CSI bait in order to achieve colony elimination. A range of 0% (control), 0.5%, 1%, 2.5%, and 5% of the total worker population of colonies was allowed to feed on a formulated 0.5% noviflumuron bait for five days before being returned to their colonies. Colony elimination was observed for all 5%-fed and four out of six 2.5%-fed colonies by 107 days after CSI exposure. Our results confirm that only a small subset of the worker population of a colony must feed upon a CSI bait to achieve subterranean termite colony elimination.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge Reynaldo Moscat, Alvin Puzio, and Jean Palacios for helping to process colonies and Nan-Yao Su for providing laboratory space. This study was supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (Grant No. 1014604) and Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (Grant No. 026398).

Funding

This study was partially funded by USDA-NIFA Hatch Project No. FLA-FTL-005660/No. 1014604 and by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services under the Project No. 026398.

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TC conceived and designed research. JG and JV conducted experiments. All authors analyzed data. JG wrote the initial draft of the manuscript. All authors contributed to critical revision of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Johnalyn M. Gordon.

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Gordon, J.M., Velenovsky, J.F. & Chouvenc, T. Subterranean termite colony elimination can be achieved even when only a small proportion of foragers feed upon a CSI bait. J Pest Sci 95, 1207–1216 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10340-021-01446-4

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