ABSTRACT

Pesticides constitute a major anthropogenic addition to ecosystem and thereby affect non-target organisms. Excessive and inappropriate use of herbicides has led to a plethora of serious harmful effects including a rise in environmental pollution. Here, a study was carried out to determine the toxicity of Butachlor and Fluazifop on the worker caste of termites, Macrotermes species, using different concentrations of both herbicides and replicating the trials five times. The resultant percentage mortality was calculated and statistical analysis was performed using General Linear Model Analysis of Variance (GLM ANOVA). The results showed that the herbicides caused varying levels of mortality against the termites. The lowest concentration of the herbicides caused between 48% and 68% for Butachlor after 6 and 12-hours of exposure and for Fluazifop, the lowest concentration caused 44% and 56% mortality following 6 and 12-hours exposure. Mean percentage mortality increased with increasing concentrations and exposure duration. Concentrations of Butachlor and Fluazifop below the recommended concentrations caused 100% mortality after 12hours of exposure. Results from this study suggest that both Butachlor and Fluazifop are not only toxic to termites but are capable of affecting the ecosystem services provided by termites even when applied in concentrations lower than the recommended. Therefore, governing authorities should effectively control licensing, manufacturing, storage, use and disposal of these herbicides. In addition, more studies focusing on the effects of these herbicides on other aspects such as behavior and physiology of worker termites and other beneficial insects would be beneficial and of high impact.