FORT COLLINS-- A Colorado State University scientist's discovery may lead to a safer and cheaper way to prevent termites from infesting homes, where they cause an estimated $750 million in damage in the United States annually.
Entomologist Louis Bjostad found that termites' natural reliance on carbon dioxide to find food and shelter can also be used against the insects as a non-toxic alternative to current forms of pest control.
"When we first initiated the experiments, we wondered if the concept would be too simple to work," Bjostad said. "Our findings show that carbon dioxide undoubtedly attracts termites, which opens up a whole range of possibilities for controlling these pests."
Bjostad, with researchers Elisa Bernklau and Erich Fromm, made the discovery by placing two species of termites--Reticulitermes tibialis, a species common to Colorado, and R. flavipes, a frequent pest in the Great Lakes--at one end of a T-shaped tube. In one arm, researchers pumped in normal air, and in the other, CO2 in concentrations higher than those in normal soil.
"When a termite came to the point of choosing an arm, it moved its antennae to one side of the tube, then the other," Bjostad said of the experiments. "Most of them chose the side containing the carbon dioxide."
Bjostad and his colleagues believe termites are naturally attracted to carbon dioxide for two reasons. Rotting wood--the termites' main source of food--releases CO2, a process that likely guides the insects to food. Concentrations of the gas inside termite colonies is higher than ambient air, suggesting termites also use CO2 to find home.
Now Bjostad and his colleagues are using the discovery to create a
substance that slowly releases CO2 underground to lure termites away from houses
and other structures where they cause damage. Because it occurs in abundance
naturally, CO2 offers a
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Contact: Louis Bjostad
lbjostad@lamar.colostate.edu
(970) 491-5987
Colorado State University
15-Jan-1998