摘要：Despite their well-known role as pests, termites also provide essential ecosystem services.In this paper, we undertook a comprehensive review of studies on human–termite interactions and farmers'indigenous knowledge across Sub-Saharan Africa in an effort to build coherent principles for termitemanagement. The review revealed that local communities have comprehensive indigenous knowledge oftermite ecology and taxonomy, and apply various indigenous control practices. Many communities alsohave elaborate knowledge of the nutritional and medicinal value of termites and mushrooms associatedwith termite nests. Children and women also widely consume termite mound soil for nutritional or otherbenefits encouraged by indigenous belief systems. In addition, subsistence farmers use termites as indicatorsof soil fertility, and use termite mound soil in low-risk farming strategies for crop production. In the past,chemical control of termites has been initiated without empirical data on the termite species, their damagethreshold, and the social, ecological, or economic risks and trade-offs of the control. This review hasprovided new insights into the intimate nature of human–termite interactions in Africa and the risks ofchemical control of termites to human welfare and the environment. We recommend that management oftermites in future should be built on farmers' indigenous knowledge and adequate understanding of theecology of the local termite species
关键词：Agroforestry; biodiversity; geophagy; management; traditional ecological knowledge
