This item is one of the news releases and story leads that ARS Information
distributes on weekdays to fax and e-mail subscribers. You can also get the
latest ARS news on the World Wide Web at
www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/thelatest.htm.
* Feedback and questions to ARS News Service via e-mail: isjd@ars-grin.gov.
* ARS Information Staff, 5601 Sunnyside Ave., Room 1-2251, Beltsville MD
20705-5128, (301) 504-1617, fax (301) 504-1648.
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From: "ARS News Service"
To: "ARS News List"
Subject: Fungi v. Termites
Date: Mon, Sep 25, 2000, 4:29 AM
STORY LEAD:
New Fungal Threat on Tap for Formosan Termites
___________________________________________
ARS News Service
Agricultural Research Service, USDA
Linda McElreath, (301) 504-1658, lmcelreath@ars.usda.gov
September 25, 2000
___________________________________________
For now, the mold growing in petri dishes at Maureen Wright's New Orleans
lab is little more than a cottony patch. But termites that have died from
contacting this mold have Wright considering its potential as a new
bio-pesticide.
Wright, a U.S. Department of Agriculture microbiologist, is charged with
testing bacteria, molds and other microbes that will kill Formosan
subterranean termites but spare beneficial insects. Her work is part of
"Operation FullStop," a national campaign led by USDA's Agricultural
Research Service against the Formosan termite, an exotic species that
arrived in North America from the South Pacific sometime after World War
II. In New Orleans, where Wright works at ARS' Southern Regional Research
Center, Formosan termites cost the city up to $300 million annually.
On Mississippi's Formosan termite-plagued Gulf Coast, ARS and other
Operation FullStop scientists are testing several new pest controls,
including a new bait formula containing Metarhizium anisopliae, a fungus
that's approved for use in killing certain native subterranean termites. In
ARS lab trials, M. anisopliae killed up to 90 percent of Formosan termites.
But Wright's cottony mold, growing at SRRC's Formosan Subterranean Termite
Research Unit, is even deadlier. Compared to M. anisopliae and three other
fungal species tested, the mold killed 100 percent of termites in less than
one week, versus 50 to 100 percent for the others in one or more weeks.
The scientists' early observations indicate the termites aren't repelled by
the mold (whose scientific name is being withheld for confidentiality
reasons). This lack of repellency could broaden the mold's potential use in
bait products similar to those that kill termites with slow-acting chemical
poisons.
Wright and ARS chemist Bill Connick began the tests earlier this year.
They'll develop a cost-effective method for producing the mold as well as
various formulations with which to apply it. Wright plans to test other
strains of the mold as well.
___________________________________________
Scientific contact: Maureen Wright, ARS Southern Regional Research Center,
Formosan Subterranean Termite Research Unit, New Orleans, La., phone (504)
286-4294, fax (504) 286-4419, mwright@nola.srrc.usda.gov.
___________________________________________
This item is one of the news releases and story leads that ARS Information
distributes on weekdays to fax and e-mail subscribers. You can also get the
latest ARS news on the World Wide Web at
www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/thelatest.htm.
* Feedback and questions to ARS News Service via e-mail: isjd@ars-grin.gov.
* ARS Information Staff, 5601 Sunnyside Ave., Room 1-2251, Beltsville MD
20705-5128, (301) 504-1617, fax (301) 504-1648.
