Pliny the Elder was one of the first to record it 2,000 years ago: termites are noisy eaters. Their loud chewing generates acoustic emissions that have been proposed to be a method of detecting cryptic attack. But a team from the Commonwealth worker termites might be able to detect vibration/acoustic signals generated by their foraging and use these signals to determine the size of the piece of...

Strains of the entomopathogens Beauveria bassiana (Balsamo) Vuillemin and Metarhizium anisopliae (Metschnikoff) Sorokin were screened for effectiveness against the Formosan subterranean termite, Coptotermes formosanus (Shiraki). Biological control methods are being considered to augment current integrated pest management schemes that involve chemical baits and nonrepellent termiticides. In this...

Tsaitermes ampliceps (lower termites) and Mironasutitermes shangchengensis (higher termites) are highly eusocial insects that thrive on recalcitrant lignocellulosic diets through nutritional symbioses with gut dwelling prokaryotes and eukaryotes. We used denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis and a 16S rRNA clone library to investigate i) how microbial communities adapt to lignocellulosic diet...

Why is the ground brown, when detritivores and decomposers have the numbers and ability to speed up the turnover of dark-coloured soil organic carbon? We consider this soil analogue to the 'green world' hypothesis measuring in the field how fast termites occupied cellulosic baits of varying quantity and quality and how predation risks by ants affect such encounters. Single baits with ants were ...

Cellulose digestion in termites (Isoptera) is highly important for ecological reasons and applications in biofuel conversion. The speciose Termitidae family has lost flagellates in the hindgut and developed diverse feeding habits. To address the response of cellulase activity to the differentiation of feeding habits, a comparative study of the activity and distribution of composite cellulases, ...

The response of the Formosan subterranean termite to both dead termites and 2-phenoxyethanol with and without nonrepellent insecticide residues was examined using three commercially available pesticide formulations (acetamiprid, fipronil, and imidacloprid). Results indicated that significantly more search tunnels were constructed in the 2-phenoxyethanol-treated sand with three different insecti...

The introduction of termiticidal baits over 10 years ago has increased interest in the basic foraging behavior of pest termite species. Due to the amount of interference with foraged cellulose material (bait matrices, both treated and untreated) in bait stations as part of some control programs, the following study was initiated to examine the response of termites to very short term (1 wk) part...

Xylophagous termites possess symbiotic bacteria that Þx atmospheric nitrogen (N2). Although symbiotic N2 Þxation is central to termite nutrition and ecologically important, it is energetically costly. Using stable isotopes, we tested the hypothesis that symbiotic N2 Þxation would decrease in workers of the eastern subterranean termite, Reticulitermes flavipes Kollar, which were exposed to high ...

Expansion of Eucalyptus plantation is considered to be one of the major human disturbances to tropical forests, where termites are superabundant and an important decomposer. Here we studied the biomass of dead wood and the abundance and species composition of termites in dead wood in Eucalyptus plantation forest (EF) in Thailand and compared the data with those of the neighboring dry evergreen ...

The chloro-nicotinyl insecticide imidacloprid is used extensively as a soil treatment against subterranean termites. We conducted the Þrst study of the metabolic fate of imidacloprid in termites, by exposing workers of the eastern subterranean termite, Reticulitermes flavipes (Kollar) (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae) to radiolabeled imidacloprid through topical application and ingestion. Several day...