Ajay Harit

• PhD
• Associate Professor at Kalinga University

Sickle cell anaemia is a severe global disease marked by oxidative stress and painful episodes. This study evaluates the antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-sickling properties of the ethanolic extract of Ficus virens Aiton leaves. Total phenolic (TPC), tannin (TTC), and flavonoid (TFC) contents were assessed spectrophotometrically, while anti...

It is well known that biopores are crucial for soil functioning. However, their dynamics is rarely studied and their origin with regards to the soil organisms involved is still hard to determine. In this study we investigated the diversity of biopores and their regeneration rates in situ in various pedoclimatic conditions. Our approach involved fie...

Earthworm migration in significant quantities is an extremely rare event in nature. The probable cause for such migration and associated mortality is generally obscure without additional information on the bio-ecology of the region. The present study was conducted as a result of public reporting of mass migration and mortality of earthworms in two...

Drawida willsi was the first species of earthworm reported from Chhattisgarh state by Michaelsen in 1907. After that, only one survey of earthworm has been carried out there in 2021. Here we present a first-hand information on the survey of earthworms carried out in Chhattisgarh state in the year 2022. The study documents 12 species belonging to 4...

Insects constitute most of the biodiversity on earth and they provide a large range of services to our society. Unfortunately, this biodiversity is threatened by human activities such as the destruction of natural habitats and urbanization. This article assesses advances in our knowledge of the impact of insects on sustainable food production in lo...

Humans established relations with food with their existence on earth. In various parts of the world, different types of vegetation are used as food material. Chhattisgarh, where numbers of tribes exist and used a leafy portion of various plants as a food material. The present study evaluated the total protein, total carbohydrate, and total free ami...

Antibiotic resistance is a matter of global public health concern. Antibiotic resistance isdisseminated by antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) which are carried by antibiotic resistancebacteria (ARBs). Lotic ecosystems like rivers which has flowing water can spread ARGs fromone location to another. Such dispersion of ARGs can also move through food...

Understanding how soil fauna impact soil aggregate dynamics remains a critical issue in soil science, especially because of the influence on soil aggregate stability on key ecological and environmental processes. This question is even more crucial in tropical countries, where soils are particularly vulnerable to erosion. In many tropical environmen...

In the tropics, termites and beetles are considered key soil bioturbators regarding their impacts on many ecosystem services. The aim of this study was to compare the functional impacts of these two soil engineers in a seasonally dry tropical forest in southern India. The soil excavated by dung beetles and termite sheeting found at the soil surface...

Koilsagar Reservoir, a pivotal water source in the district of Mahabubnagar, Telangana, India, plays a significant role in local ecosystems and community well-being. This research addresses the critical need to comprehend and document fish diversity within the reservoir, emphasizing its ecological and socio-economic importance. The results of the s...

Termites are key soil bioturbators in tropical ecosystems. Apart from mound nests constructed by some advanced lineages, most of the species use their faeces, oral secretions, debris, or soil aggregates to protect themselves from predators and desiccation when they go out to forage. Although this soil ‘sheeting’ is considered to play a key role in...

Aims: In Southern India, termite above-ground nests can have the shape of cathedral (CAT) or lenticular (LENT) mounds. Although CAT are built by the fungus-growing species Odontotermes obesus, the origin and evolution of LENT remain unknown. Study site: This study was carried out in the Bandipur Tiger reserve (dry deciduous forest), Karnataka, Sou...

This study aimed to compare the properties of the constructions made by Microcerotermes pakistanicus, a wood-feeding termite species building carton nests, to those made by the fungus-growing termite Odontotermes obesus in a secondary forest in the Western Ghats region of Kerala. X-ray computed tomography (X-ray CT) showed that the pinnacle of O. o...

Termites are undoubtedly amongst the most important soil macroinvertebrate decomposers in semi-arid environments in Asia. This communication reviews the key ecological roles played by termite constructions, the so-called termite mounds, in natural and cultivated environments in Asia, a region facing dramatic environmental and societal changes. Thro...

Impact of dungle beetles and termites on soil properties in Mule Hole long term observatory (https://mtropics.obs-mip.fr/), Bandipur Tiger reserve, Karnataka, Southern India. Two dataset are available: (i) the physical and chemical properties of termite sheeting below elephant dung (TSDung) or below wood branches (TSBranch), the soil excavated by d...

This study aimed to understand the relationship between termite foraging activity and the ecological benefits derived from their activity in soil dynamics and water infiltration. A field study was carried out for six months, between pre-wet and wet seasons, with different food baits (elephant dung, Acacia auriculiformis leaves, twigs and leaves of...

This communication assesses advances in our knowledge of the beneficial influences of termites on ecosystem functioning and services. Termites are amongst the main macroinvertebrate decomposers in arid and semi-arid environments and exert additional impacts through the creation of biostructures (mounds, galleries, sheetings, etc.) with different so...

Mounds built by fungus-growing termites are often considered to be patches or fertile areas in tropical ecosystems because they contain more nutrients than the surrounding soil environments. However, the mechanism of how these habitats influence soil physical properties remains unknown. Therefore, this study aimed at comparing the soil hydrostructu...

Termites are undoubtedly amongst the most important soil macroinvertebrate decomposers in semi-arid environments in India. However, in this specific type of environment, the influence of termite foraging activity on soil functioning remains unexplored. Therefore, this study examines the link between the quality of litter and the functional impact o...

In the tropics, termites are key litter decomposers and soil bioturbators. Termite foraging activity involves the production of sheetings and galleries that influence the physical, chemical and hydraulic properties of soils. The functional impacts of these biogenic structures and biopores have been acknowledged for a long time in soils dominated by...

In this study, we used Mid-Infrared Spectroscopy (MIRS) to analyze the biochemical fingerprints of nine termite colonies (soldiers, minor and major workers). We then examined whether these spectra could be used to differentiate termite colonies and if their differences could be explained by the geographical distances between colonies and/or their a...

Termites are considered soil engineers and key bioturbators in tropical and subtropical soils. A large number of studies have described the specific properties of the aboveground mounds that termites construct to protect their colonies from environmental hazards. However, there is a paucity of information on properties of soil sheetings; more tempo...

Despite the acknowledged roles of termites in tropical ecosystems, the majority of published studies of epigeal mounds still address the African fauna and are principally concerned with spatial patterns and putative inter-colony competition, rather than the links between parent soil properties and mound establishment. Further, information about the...

Understanding the link between termites’ impact on ecosystem functioning and their ecological needs remains a key question in ecology. This study focused on the influence of the fungus-growing termite species, Hypotermes obscuriceps, on soil properties in Southern India. This species produces soil sheetings and mounds on the ground. In contrast to...

Different authors have tried in the past to develop captive colonies of termites in their laboratories, starting with capturing of alate pairs and confining them in Petri dishes or small boxes to facilitate mating, then transferring incipient colonies into progressively larger containers. Twenty-three termite species of the genera Coptotermes, Cort...

It is widely acknowledged that vermicast has beneficial effect on plant growth but little is known on how the manner and duration of storage affect the vermicast quality. In an attempt to cover this knowledge-gap we have carried out a study on changes in physical and chemical properties of vermicast as function of ageing when it is stored. The stud...

The pattern of swarming of the termite Coptotermes gestroi was studied in a thickly wooded 780 acre campus of Pondicherry University, located about 12 km north of downtown Puducherry, India. In four years, C. gestroi swarms occurred 17 times of which 14 occurred in June and the remaining three in the first half of July. All the swarming occurred af...