Ant‐termite interactions: an important but under‐explored ecological linkage

Abstract

Animal interactions play an important role in understanding ecological processes. The nature and intensity of these interactions can shape the impacts of organisms on their environment. Because ants and termites, with their high biomass and range of ecological functions, have considerable effects on their environment, the interaction between them is important for ecosystem processes. Although the manner in which ants and termites interact is becoming increasingly well studied, there has been no synthesis to date of the available literature. Here we review and synthesise all existing literature on anttermite interactions. We infer that ant predation on termites is the most important, most widespread, and most studied type of interaction. Predatory ant species can regulate termite populations and subsequently slow down the decomposition of wood, litter and soil organic matter. As a consequence they also affect plant growth and distribution, nutrient cycling and nutrient availability. Although some ant species are specialised termite predators, there is probably a high level of opportunistic predation by generalist ant species, and hence their impact on ecosystem processes that termites are known to provide varies at the species level. The most fruitful future research direction will be to evaluate the impact of ant-termite predation on broader ecosystem processes. To do this it will be necessary to quantify the efficacy both of particular ant species and of ant communities as a whole in regulating termite populations in different biomes. We envisage that this work will require a combination of methods, including DNA barcoding of ant gut contents along with field observations and exclusion experiments. Such a combined approach is necessary for assessing how this interaction influences entire ecosystems.

The diversification of termites: inferences from a complete species-level phylogeny

“…This ended up allowing them to have a diverse diet, including the entire decomposition gradient of plant material, from sound wood, to grass, epiphytes, to soil and cultivation of fungi simbiontes (see also Engel et al, 2019). This diversification made the Termitidae family to account for the impressive biomass of termites in the tropics and subtropics, compasing almost 80% of all described termite species (Engel et al, 2009;Tuma et al, 2020). Also, nearly half of the termite species are soil feeders, and this habit was crucial to the radiation of the family (Higashi and Abe, 1997;Krishna et al, 2013;Bucek et al, 2019;Engel et al 2019).…”

“…Termites are the quintessential environmental engineers in the tropics, performing many important ecosystem services such as decomposition, soil formation and aeration, and nutrient cycling (Jouquet et al, 2006(Jouquet et al, , 2011Evans et al, 2011;Ashton et al, 2019). They are dominant animals in the soil, comprising up to 40-65% of the total soil macrofaunal biomass (Eggleton et al, 1996;Tuma et al, 2020), and can be responsible for 54-68% of total decomposition in some biotopes (Jouquet et al, 2011;Ashton et al, 2019). Despite the important ecological role of termites on a variety of terrestrial ecosystems, our understanding of the adaptations that led to such high prevalence is still limited (Davis et al, 2009;Legendre and Condamine, 2018).…”

Invertebrates and the complexity of tropical ecosystems

“…Nevertheless, although comparisons of species richness of vertebrates with terrestrial arthropods may be “no‐contests,” it can be argued that in places with an intact megafauna—like some African savannahs—the vertebrates make up for their modest species richness by their large biomass. Here, again data are sparse, and it may well be that the termites alone are comparable to the vertebrates in sheer mass (Bell, ; Ferrar, ; Tuma, Eggleton, & Fayle, ).…”

Revisiting stigmergy in light of multi-functional, biogenic, termite structures as communication channel

“…Defence is often assumed to be active, as a reaction of a defender (termite soldiers or workers) against an opponent, such as intruding predatory ants [143] by making use of mandibles, chemicals, sticky or toxic secretions or even suicidal bombing (autothysis) as found in Neocapritermes taracua [36] , [47] , [144] , [145] , [146] . The stickiness of secretions has an immediate effect on attackers as compared to slowly acting lethal toxicants [147] and might also affect more than one individual.…”