TERMITE ( INSECTA : ISOPTERA ) FAUNA OF SOME AGRICULTURAL CROPS OF VADODARA , GUJARAT ( INDIA )

Termite or white ant, locally called 'Udai' or 'Deemak', is associated with human civilization from time immemorial. Termites are represented by three castes, viz., workers, soldiers and reproductives, and live in small to large colonies, sometimes a single colony containing a million or more individuals. In the ancient Sanskrit literature termites were known as 'Kashtaharika' or wood-feeders. Termites cause damage to both celluloseand non-cellulose containing substances like living trees, crop plants, wooden electric poles, railway sleepers, telephone and electrical cables, etc. Termites inhabit the tropical, subtropical and temperate regions of the world (Smeathman, 1781; Freise, 1949; Krishna and Weesner 1970; Pearce, 1997).

alcohol and properly labeled.Termites thus collected were photographed in laboratory by Sony Digital Camera (DSC H2, 12X optical zoom).Identification of termites was done following the schemes proposed by Roonwal and Chhotani (1989) and Chhotani (1997).
Percent presence was calculated using the formula (Southwood and Henderson, 2000), d i = (ni X 100)lN, where, d i = Percent presence, ni = No. of individuals of taxa, and, N = Total individuals.

OBSERVATION AND RESULTS
Fifteen termite species belonging to two families and seven genera were recorded in the present study.Only five species belonging to three genera were identified as pests of the above crops.Pest species were recorded from all study areas.Economic importance It was a serious pest of sugarcane and wheat.

Termite species recorded
Nature of damage: C. heimi damaged sugarcane at 'seed cane' stage but wheat was infested from early to full-grown stage.Workers entered through the cut ends and eye buds of the 'setts' (planting stalk) by tunneling, thus inhibiting the plant growth.Seedlings of wheat were attacked by this species.
C. heimi destroyed the roots of wheat plants and ultimately the injured plant became weak and withered away.Strong wind or other disturbances at this stage bend the spikelet to such an extent that the earhead fell on the ground, resulting into death even before it reaches the harvesting stage.The affected plants can be easily uprooted with a little pressure.Pest continued its infestation and started consuming the fallen earhead.
Remarks : Coptotermes heimi was a subterranean species and found abundantly in the adjoining areas.
The workers tunneled through wood and devoured the inner wood completely, leaving the outer portion intact.

Rec. zooz. Surv. India
The nests of C. heimi were found under barks, logs and wooden structures, etc. Aggressive soldiers, when disturbed, exude milky white fluid from fontanelle.
Coptotermes heimi population had the maximum number of soldiers among all castes, sometimes outnumbering the soldiers of other species.After a heavy shower, the species usually built capillary nests under dead tree bark, capillary length sometimes exceeding six meters.
Living Acacia senegal and Prosopis juliflora trees in the surrounding areas were also found to be susceptible to attack by this species.Elsewhere in Gujarat : Dangs, Kutch.
Economic importance : The species did not enjoy the status of a pest.
Remarks : This is the first record of O. assmuthi from Vadodara.O. assmuthi was one of the subterranean species which built diffused nest made of narrow galleries.In addition to their abundance in soil the species was also found under logs.Economic importance : This species was found to be a pest of sugarcane and wheat.

Odontotermes bhagwathi
Nature of damage : This termite species built tunnels in sugarcane which resulted into death of the plant.Plant became weak due to poor conduction of nutrients.Sometimes the species entered into the stem through the holes made by sugarcane stem borer.In wheat, this species was found to damage the root system at both the seedling and maturing stage.
However, it causes damage to the stem at mature stage only.
Remarks : Prior to this study, the species was not known to be a pest of any agricultural crops in Gujarat.
This widely distributed species made mounds, the chambers of which are inter-connected by tunnels.The outer wall of the mound was thick and solid.O.
redemanni was also collected from tree logs, dead tree stumps, etc. Economic importance : During present study the species was found to cause damage in cotton, sugarcane and castor.
Nature of damage : In case of sugarcane, the species tunneled through the eye bud and cut ends of sowed 'setts' due to which the 'setts' failed to propagate.Elsewhere in Gujarat : Banaskantha, Dangs, Junagadh, Mahesana, Sabarkantha, Surendranagar.
Economic importance : It was not found to damage any crop.
Remarks : Being a subterranean species, M.
unicolor built diffused nest in soil.This species was also found to be present under logs and inside the dead tree stumps.Of the four study areas, maximum number (13) of species were known from Karjan, 9 from Dabhoi, 8 from Padra and 7 from Savli (Fig. 1).In terms of cropwise occurrence (Fig. 2), sugarcane was attacked by maximum (5) species, followed by wheat (5), cotton (3) and castor (2).The incidence and attack of Coptotermes heimi was maximum (76%) and minimum (24%) in sugarcane and wheat respectively (Fig. 3).This particular species was found attacking the planting stalks of sugarcane but in wheat crop damage was mainly noticed in maturing stage (Table 3).Odontotermes obesus acted as pest to all the four crops, irrespective of any stages.
However, M. mycophagus was not recorded from wheat.
However, matured wheat crops were more susceptible to the attacks of M. obesi.Cotton was damaged only at its maturing stage.In terms of occurrence, O. obesus occupies the highest position (28%), followed by Microtermes obesi (25%) and M. mycophagus (17%).
O. redemanni and C. heimi were very rare and a very few specimens were collected (Table 2).
Termite damage in sugarcane occurred both at seedling ('setts ') and maturing stage.In wheat, the infestation was much more in seedling stage than maturing stage.There were no marked difference in the intensity of damage to any stage in cotton and castor .Thakur (1996) recorded Odontotermes obesus and Microtermes obesi as a major pest of sugarcane in India and Pakistan.
mycophagus were found to be the most versatile species in this study, and besides their occurrence in the crop field (Table 2), they also showed their marked presence in a number of other microhabitats (Table 4).

DISCUSSION
Agarwala (1955) estimated 2.5% loss in sugarcane tonnage and 4.47% in sugar production in Bihar.Roonwal (1981) noticed that the most important termite species attacking wheat and cotton were Microtermes     (Anonymous, 1981;Wardle, 1987;Thakur, 1996).Occurrence of some species in a number of microhabitats confers them an added advantage to survive in dry, arid, harsh environments, an important factor for a species to be considered as a pest.

Family
Elsewhere in Gujarat : Ahmedabad, Banaskantha, Bharuch, Dangs, J amnagar, Kutch, Kheda, Mahesana, Panchmahal, Sabarkantha, Surat, Valsad.Economic importance : The species attacked the tender and matured cotton, wheat, sugarcane and castor plants.Nature of damage : The species entered into the sugarcane 'setts' through the cut ends and also by making tunnels through the root at seedling stage.It damaged the roots of the maturing sugarcane plants and made soil sheet on outer side of the shoot.The species damaged the tender roots of young wheat plant which resulted in dislodgement of the plant.A full-grown plant also gets infested through stem and the infestation spread up to the apical portion of the plant.Roots of cotton plants are damaged by this species at seedling stage but it destroyed the stems at matured stage and made tunnels through it near the ground level.Castor stems (upto a height of one foot above the ground level) were found to be most vulnerable to the attack by this species.O. obesus made a covering of soil around the fallen castor fruits of the damaged plants and started devouring it.Remarks: O. obesus was the main mound-building termite species in and around Vadodara.The mounds were unilocular or multilocular (Plate 4.16).This species was commonly found in almost all microhabitats and caused wide range of damages.Besides its occurrence in crop field the species was also collected from a variety of habitats like wooden structures, tree bark, stones and logs, leaf litter, heaps of fuel wood and crop residues, dead tree stumps, etc.It constructed soil sheeting on fallen tree branches and twigs.11.Odontotermes redemanni Wasmann, 1893 (Plate 3.11) Distribution: Vadodara : Karjan, Padri, Dabhoi and Savli.Elsewhere in Gujarat : Banaskantha, Bharuch, Mahesana, Panchmahal.
13. Microtermes obesiHolmgren, 1913   (Plate 4.13)    Distribution: Vadodara : Karjan, Padri, Dabhoi and Savli.Elsewhere in Gujarat : Banaskantha, Sabarkantha.Economic importance: Recorded as pest of cotton, sugarcane and wheat.Nature of damage : Severity of damage due to M. obesi in sugarcane was much more as compared to that of wheat and cotton.Microtermes obesi tunneled through internodes of sugarcane stems at maturing stage but caused damage to the roots at seedling stage.It damaged the root system of wheat at seedling and maturing stages.Occasionally during maturity the species cut the stems of wheat plant near the ground level.As a result the earhead became dry and failed to produce any grain.It damaged the roots of germinating plants, the plants withered away and ultimately the plants die.This species also tunneled through cotton stem near soil surface.Sometimes M. obesi destroyed the entire crops at maturing stage by making tunnel through their roots.Remarks : M. obesi, a subterranean species, was one of the most common and widely distributed species in the study area.This species can tolerate wide range of ecological fluctuations.Nests of this species had small, round chambers, connected by means of thin, long capillaries.M. obesi was also collected from tree stumps, logs, bamboo fencings, barks, leaf litter, cow dung, heaps of weed and crop residues, etc.14.Microtermes unicolorSnyder, 1933   (Plate 4.14)    Distribution: Vadodara : Dabhoi and Karjan.

Food
and habitat greatly influenced the termite activity.Termite-infested organic manure when applied to field also increased the intensity of attack.Sandy loam soil was found at Padra, Savli and Dabhoi but crop fields of Karjan were formed of black soil.Incidence of termite attack was found less at Padra, Savli and Dabhoi than Karjan which is probably due to high evaporation rate and low water-holding capacity of sandy loam soil.High evaporation rate of sandy loam soil poses desiccation threat to the soft-bodied termites which probably restricts their distribution in those areas.Shady area provided a good quantity of moisture to the termites which justified the intensity of attack in shady places than in open areas.In addition to shade and plant cover, objects like big boulders, manure heaps, wooden logs, tree stumps, etc. also provided shelter and moisture to the termites.Because of their affinity to shady and moist places, the termites made galleries in and around these objects.Thick vegetation provided the ground shade which in turn supplied more moisture and humidity to the soil, one of the major factors promoting termite activity.Owing to unique phyllotactic arrangement, castor leaves are mainly restricted to the apical region for which termites get very little shade around castor plants.Since the termites are soft-bodied animals and are very much prone to desiccation, for obvious reasons they either kept themselves away from these somewhat drier areas around castor plants or penetrate deep into the soil.
Most termite pest species are subterranean and management of these species primarily relies on soil treatment with termiticides at the site of attack.As a result of adverse effect of the organochlorines on the environment, research shifted towards third and made to study the termite fauna of wheat, cotton, castor and sugarcane in and around the crop fields of Vadodara.Of the fifteen species belonging to two families and seven genera, five were found to cause damage to crops.Ododntotermes obesus, Microtermes obesi and Microtermes mycophagus occur in maximum number.Ododntotermes obesus was the most destructive species and destroyed seedling and maturing stages of all crops.
It also survived on the fallen castor fruits.

Table 1 :
Recorded termite taxa This is in accordance with our study as only two termite species were recorded from castor.

Table 2 :
Presence of termite species