Elevational environmental stress modulating species cohabitation in nests of a social insect

Abstract

1. Termite nests may offer shelter to a number of species, alleviating the effects of environmental harshness. Certain elevational gradients provide variation on edaphoclimatic features, possibly generating harsh environmental conditions and boosting the number of immigrants seeking shelter within termitaria. Therefore, it is expected that metrics describing the community of termitaria cohabitants would correlate with elevation.2. To test this hypothesis, we surveyed the termitophiles inhabiting 20 nests of Nasutitermes coxipoensis along an elevational gradient in a tropical mountain in Brazil. We assessed the richness, abundance, and composition (β-diversity) of termite nests' cohabitants, testing nest volume and elevational position as explanatory covariates.3. We found a positive correlation between the elevation at which termitaria were located and the richness and abundance of cohabiting termitophiles. Additionally, no correlation was found between elevational distance and dissimilarity of cohabitant communities between termitaria. Hence, the understanding that termitaria work as an 'oasis' of favorable microclimate is reinforced by our findings that the composition changed but was not correlated to elevation. 4. In short, environmental harshness boosts the establishment of distinct species of termitophiles in termitaria and it does so regardless of the invading species identity.

Termite Inquilinism: proximate mechanisms mediating coexistence

“…In the first scenario, the symbiosis between inquiline and host would be facilitated by the defense-reproduction trade-off triggered by a hormonal mechanism, which disrupts the host colony homeostasis, easing inquiline invasion. This is in line with the known correlation between symbiosis and different types of disturbance (Seckbach and Grube, 2010), such as homeostasis ruptures , environment disturbance such as fire (Monteiro et al, 2017) and environmental harshness (Viana-Junior et al, 2021).…”

Structural variation of ant nests mediates the local distribution and abundance of an associate

“…Studies on factors that constrain the distribution of ant (and termite) nest symbionts are mostly related to their dispersal limitation, with more connected and larger, older nests tend to have a higher tendency to be occupied by symbionts (Cristaldo et al., 2012; Härkönen & Sorvari, 2017; Parmentier et al., 2015). Recent findings, however, suggest that also variable nest conditions in ant and termite nests may impact the distribution and community composition of associates (Elo & Sorvari, 2019; Viana‐Junior et al., 2021). For example, nest mounds of red wood ants in clearfell areas housed a less diverse assemblage of oribatid mites than nests in the forest, which can be attributed to the drier and less buffered conditions in nests in clearfells (Elo & Sorvari, 2019).…”