Behaviour and ecological impacts of termites: Fecundity investigations in mounds

Abstract

A radical study was conducted on the behaviour and ecological impacts of termites in Haru District of Western Oromia, Ethiopia. It was aimed at investigating the natural behaviour, fecundity in mounds, ecological impacts and recommending possible solutions to termite problems. Four mounds in different sites were vertically dug down to display the profile of the queen, soldiers, workers, number of laid eggs, nymphs and colonies of termites. On an average, termite queens of the study site may lay about 25 eggs per minute, 36,000 eggs per day and 13,140,000 eggs annually. The fourth queen was unearthed to study the structure, size, number of ovaries and fecundity. It was examined that the death of a queen does not affect the colony, because four small queens are formed and one of them becomes the queen of queens and replaced the dead queen promptly. Accordingly, termites are found to be one of the most destructive agents of our ecosystems and their management requests careful and biological control methods. As a result, the negative effect of termites outweighs the positive effect of termites so that minimising the population size is important for human beings.