Microbial control of urban pests – cockroaches, ants and termites

Abstract

Urban pests, represented in this chapter by cockroaches, ants and termites, present a unique challenge for microbial control. They are all known to detect and avoid both chemical and microbial pesticides, they have few natural enemies to integrate with microbial pesticides, the relatively constant environment is often inhibitory to infection by fungi, and there are few naturally occurring pathogens to develop. Add to this the expectation of householders to have quick, long-term control of these pests and the difficulty of obtaining funding for research on the use of pathogens for urban pest control (Oi and Hinkle, 1997), and it becomes obvious why this is an under-researched area. However, there are incentives; an increasing proportion of householders and owners of buildings are becoming reluctant to use synthetic chemicals because of allergies, other health concerns and, in the case of landlords, the threat of legal action. In addition, buildings offer protection from UV and extremes of temperature thus enhancing the persistence of microbial pesticides. The scale of damage caused by these pests and the value of the urban pest control market has led a number of companies, notably EcoScience (East Brunswick, NJ, USA), to develop products for this market. Unfortunately, data on the efficacy of these products (e.g.,BioBlastTM, a Metarhizium-based product sold by EcoScience for termite control) are rarely published in refereed journals and so most of the methods described in this chapter have been developed by University or Government scientists.