Dispersal flight and colony development in the fungus-growing termites Pseudacanthotermes spiniger and P. militaris

Connétable, Sophie; Robert, Alain; Bordereau, Christian

doi:10.1007/s00040-011-0216-4

Cited by 16 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 22 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…While this appears to be true in some species (e.g., Peppuy et al 2004;, in others only pheromone quantities differ between congenerics (Bordereau et al 1993(Bordereau et al , 2010Connétable et al 2012). As a result, reproductive isolation is probably maintained by other mechanisms, such as the differential timing of the dispersal and contact species recognition cues (Connétable et al 2012), which are further discussed below.…”

Section: Mate Attraction and Recognitionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Communication and Social Regulation in Termites

Bagnères

Hanus

2015

Social Recognition in Invertebrates

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Communication and social regulation are among the distinguishing features of termites: they are part of all basic aspects of termite biology, from ontogeny and caste differentiation to social behavior and cooperation. As in other highly social taxa, communication in termites predominantly relies on a complex network of chemical signals, which are complemented by vibration-based signals. In contrast to other social taxa, the role of visual cues is negligible. In this chapter, we review the recent literature on the different components that make up termite communication and social regulation systems by tracing termite evolution and examining the role played by different factors, such as sex and caste, and different behaviors, such as those related to defense, nestmate recognition, egg and brood care, foraging, and nest building, among others. The main characteristics of termites are compared to those of other social insects in the introduction. In the first section, we review the most important researches on termite communication and social regulation that are related to social activities in the basal phylogenetic lineages, and in the Termitidae (higher termites), the most advanced and diversified family. The abundant literature on the best studied genera, Reticulitermes, Coptotermes, and Heterotermes, which are considered for the purposes of this chapter to be intermediate termites, is reviewed and discussed separately in the second section. By using this approach, we seek to describe communication and social regulation systems in basal and primitive termites and illustrate how they have evolved to become more complex in intermediate and higher termites.

show abstract

Section: Mate Attraction and Recognitionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Communication and Social Regulation in Termites

Bagnères

Hanus

2015

Social Recognition in Invertebrates

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…African, fungus-growing termites Pseudacanthotermes militaris were procured from a laboratory-based colony that had been maintained for several years in the University of Dijon, France [38]. The colony was initially established in the Republic of Congo in 1992, and was thereafter maintained in Dijon in vivariums made from Altuglass, containing clayish soil and held at 28±1°C, 80% relative humidity and subjected to a daily cycle of 12 h light and 12 h dark.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mining for hemicellulases in the fungus-growing termite Pseudacanthotermes militaris using functional metagenomics

Bastien

Arnal

Bozonnet

et al. 2013

Biotechnol Biofuels

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

BackgroundThe metagenomic analysis of gut microbiomes has emerged as a powerful strategy for the identification of biomass-degrading enzymes, which will be no doubt useful for the development of advanced biorefining processes. In the present study, we have performed a functional metagenomic analysis on comb and gut microbiomes associated with the fungus-growing termite, Pseudacanthotermes militaris.ResultsUsing whole termite abdomens and fungal-comb material respectively, two fosmid-based metagenomic libraries were created and screened for the presence of xylan-degrading enzymes. This revealed 101 positive clones, corresponding to an extremely high global hit rate of 0.49%. Many clones displayed either β-d-xylosidase (EC 3.2.1.37) or α-l-arabinofuranosidase (EC 3.2.1.55) activity, while others displayed the ability to degrade AZCL-xylan or AZCL-β-(1,3)-β-(1,4)-glucan. Using secondary screening it was possible to pinpoint clones of interest that were used to prepare fosmid DNA. Sequencing of fosmid DNA generated 1.46 Mbp of sequence data, and bioinformatics analysis revealed 63 sequences encoding putative carbohydrate-active enzymes, with many of these forming parts of sequence clusters, probably having carbohydrate degradation and metabolic functions. Taxonomic assignment of the different sequences revealed that Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes were predominant phyla in the gut sample, while microbial diversity in the comb sample resembled that of typical soil samples. Cloning and expression in E. coli of six enzyme candidates identified in the libraries provided access to individual enzyme activities, which all proved to be coherent with the primary and secondary functional screens.ConclusionsThis study shows that the gut microbiome of P. militaris possesses the potential to degrade biomass components, such as arabinoxylans and arabinans. Moreover, the data presented suggests that prokaryotic microorganisms present in the comb could also play a part in the degradation of biomass within the termite mound, although further investigation will be needed to clarify the complex synergies that might exist between the different microbiomes that constitute the termitosphere of fungus-growing termites. This study exemplifies the power of functional metagenomics for the discovery of biomass-active enzymes and has provided a collection of potentially interesting biocatalysts for further study.

show abstract

“…Lifespan estimates are approximations because they only reflect laboratory conditions. Estimated maxima ranged from 15 years old in Macrotermes bellicosus (Keller 1998) to 20 years in Pseudacanthotermes spiniger and P. militaris (Connétable et al 2012). In this work, we set an age threshold of 20 years, after which a colony dies.…”

Section: Model Parameterization 325mentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulating the Spread of an Invasive Termite in an Urban Environment Using a Stochastic Individual-Based Model

Tonini¹,

Hochmair²,

Scheffrahn³

et al. 2013

Environ Entomol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Invasive termites are destructive insect pests that cause billions of dollars in property damage every year. Termite species can be transported overseas by maritime vessels. However, only if the climatic conditions are suitable will the introduced species flourish. Models predicting the areas of infestation following initial introduction of an invasive species could help regulatory agencies develop successful early detection, quarantine, or eradication efforts. At present, no model has been developed to estimate the geographic spread of a termite infestation from a set of surveyed locations. In the current study, we used actual field data as a starting point, and relevant information on termite species to develop a spatially-explicit stochastic individual-based simulation to predict areas potentially infested by an invasive termite, Nasutitermes corniger (Motschulsky), in Dania Beach, FL. The Monte Carlo technique is used to assess outcome uncertainty. A set of model realizations describing potential areas of infestation were considered in a sensitivity analysis, which showed that the model results had greatest sensitivity to number of alates released from nest, alate survival, maximum pheromone attraction distance between heterosexual pairs, and mean flight distance. Results showed that the areas predicted as infested in all simulation runs of a baseline model cover the spatial extent of all locations recently discovered. The model presented in this study could be applied to any invasive termite species after proper calibration of parameters. The simulation herein can be used by regulatory authorities to define most probable quarantine and survey zones.

show abstract

Dispersal flight and colony development in the fungus-growing termites Pseudacanthotermes spiniger and P. militaris

Cited by 16 publications

References 22 publications

Communication and Social Regulation in Termites

Communication and Social Regulation in Termites

Mining for hemicellulases in the fungus-growing termite Pseudacanthotermes militaris using functional metagenomics

Simulating the Spread of an Invasive Termite in an Urban Environment Using a Stochastic Individual-Based Model

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About