In this paper we present a study on pulse noise sources characterized by sub- and super-Poisson statistics. We make a comparison with their uncorrelated counterpart. i.e. pulse noise with Poisson statistics, while showing that the correlation properties of sub- and super-Poisson noise sources can be efficiently applied to population dynamics. Specifically, we consider a termite population, described by a Langevin equation in the presence of a pulse noise source, and we study its dynamics and stability properties for two models. The first one describes a population of several colonies in a new territory with adverse environmental conditions. The second one considers the development of a single colony under the influence of attacks by predators. o̧pyright 2020 IOP Publishing Ltd and SISSA Medialab srl