Termite communities along a disturbance gradient in a West African savanna

Schyra, Janine; Korb, Judith

doi:10.1101/167692

Cited by 4 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Meanwhile, several studies have shown that termites are sensitive to habitat disturbance (e.g. Eggleton et al 2002;Sanabria et al 2016;Schyra and Korb 2019). Wide-scale agricultural intensification and monoculture system in an oil palm plantation is presumed to be the primary factor that causes biodiversity decline and disturbs the ecological balance (Wood 1971;Vijay et al 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ant and termite diversity in Indonesian oil palm plantation: Investigating the effect of natural habitat existence

et al. 2020

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Abstract. Rizali A, Karindah S, Windari A, Rahardjo BT, Nurindah, Sahari B. 2020. Ant and termite diversity in Indonesian oil palm plantation: Investigating the effect of natural habitat existence. Biodiversitas 21: 1326-1331. Natural habitat existence in oil palm plantation has high conservation value and plays an important role in maintaining biodiversity. However, different taxa may have different responses to the presence of natural habitats. This research was aimed to investigate the effect of natural habitat existence on ant and termite diversity in oil palm plantation. The field research was conducted in oil palm plantation located in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. Twelve plots of oil palm plantation with different habitat characteristics were selected. Ants and termites were sampled using hand collection in six subplots for each plot. In total, 38 species of ants and 9 species of termites were collected from all research areas. The results showed that the area of natural habitats and the distance of oil palm field to natural habitats affected the diversity of termites in the oil palm plantation, but ant diversity did not show to be affected by the same conditions. Based on the generalized linear model, the area of natural habitats in the oil palm plantation had a negative relationship with the diversity of termites. In conclusion, the termite species community is more affected by natural habitats than ants in oil palm plantation.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ant and termite diversity in Indonesian oil palm plantation: Investigating the effect of natural habitat existence

et al. 2020

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“…Our conclusions are supported by several studies, which all showed that soil feeders are especially rich under warm, humid conditions (Bourguignon et al., ; Couto et al., ; Eggleton et al., ; Eggleton et al., ; Eggleton, Davies et al., ; Eggleton, Bignell et al., ; Isra et al., ; Palin et al., ; Roisin et al., ; Valladares, ). For instance, they decline when comparing forests with neighboring savannahs in Africa (Crolaud, Souleymane, & Yao, ; Dosso et al., ; Hausberger & Korb, ; Schyra & Korb, ), or along anthropogenic disturbance gradients where forests are turned into more open areas (Attignon et al., ; Hausberger et al., ; Trabi, Soro, Yeboue, Honate, & Tano, ). Along with this decline of soil feeders, total termite richness drops (Alves et al., ; Genet et al., ; Houston, Wormington, & Black, ; Muvengwi, Mbiba, Ndagurwa, Nyamadzawo, & Nhokovedzo, ; Viana et al., ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ecological studies on termites have been surveys to determine species richness and community composition in rain forests, savanna, and disturbed areas (e.g., Ackerman et al., ; Bignell & Eggleton, ; Bourguignon et al., ; Dahlsjö, Parr, Malhi, Meir, & Eggleton, ; Davies, Eggleton, Jones, Gathorne‐Hardy, & Hernández, ; for savanna: Ferrar, ; Schyra & Korb, ; Wood, Johnson, Bacchus, Shittu, & Anderson, ; for disturbed and fragmented forests: Eggleton, ; Eggleton et al., ; Jones et al., ; Roisin & Leponce, ; Sena, Vasconcellos, Gusmão, & Bandeira, ; Vasconcellos et al., ; for cultivated areas: Attignon, Lachat, Sinsin, Nagel, & Peveling, ; Coaton, ; Dosso, Deligne, Yeó, Konate, & Linsenmair, ; Leponce, Roisin, & Pasteels, ; Luke, Fayle, Eggleton, Turner, & Davies, ). However, termite diversity in tropical dry forests has rarely been studied (Eggleton, ; Jones & Eggleton, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Termite diversity in Neotropical dry forests of Colombia and the potential role of rainfall in structuring termite diversity

Casalla

Korb

2019

Biotropica

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Termites are ecosystem engineers that play an important role in the biotransformation and re‐distribution of nutrients in soil. The dry forests are endemic repositories, but at same time, they are most threatened by extensive livestock and crop farming, fires, and climate change. In Colombia, the best‐protected dry forests are located in the north. The termite fauna of dry forests are poorly known. The aim was to identify the termite species occurring in tropical dry forests of the Colombian Caribbean coast in relation to diet and precipitation, temperature, elevation, and soil properties. A total of 32 species in 1,103 occurrences were found. Termitidae accounted for 78% of the species richness with the Anoplotermes‐group, Microcerotermes, and Nasutitermes being the dominant genera. Differences in species composition and abundance were found across sites. These differences may be linked to anthropogenic disturbance and polygyny and polydomy. Strikingly, our highest elevation site (334 m) had the highest species richness much higher than the two lower elevation sites. This implies an inversion of the common elevation‐diversity gradient, also found for termites which can be explained by increasing precipitation with elevation in the dry forest. An analysis of termite species richness at the global scale confirms that termite species richness correlates positively with rainfall. Hence, rainfall seems to positively affect termite diversity. In line, the studied Colombian tropical dry forests had low diversity compared to rain forests. A decline of species‐rich soil‐feeding termites with increasing aridity may explain why the highest termite diversity occurs in humid tropical rain forests. Abstract in Spanish is available with online material.

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“…As a savannah ecosystem, we investigated termite assemblages in the relatively natural Oti-Kéran National Park (West Africa; 10°17’ to 10°08’ N; 0°28’ to 0°51’ E; Fig 1) in Togo, and compared these assemblages communities with those from a previous study of anthropogenically disturbed habitats (fallows) in the same region [13]. Permissions for the field work were issued by the ‘ Ministere de l’Environement et des Ressources Forestieres , Direction Generale de l‘Odef’ , Lomé, Togo.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To test these hypotheses, we first identified all species occurring in the different assemblages using morphological and molecular markers [13]. A molecular approach using sequence data is necessary to unambiguously identify all termite samples as morphology markers are not sufficient [14, 15].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A comparison of termite assemblages from West African savannah and forest ecosystems using morphological and molecular markers

2019

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Termites (Isoptera) are important ecosystem engineers of tropical ecosystems. However, they are notoriously difficult to identify, which hinders ecological research. To overcome these problems, we comparatively studied termite assemblages in the two major West African ecosystems, savannah and forest, both under natural settings and along disturbance gradients. We identified all species using morphological as well as molecular markers. We hypothesized species richness to be higher in the forest than the savannah and that it declines with disturbance in both ecosystems. Overall we found more species in the forest than in the savannah. However, alpha diversity per site did not differ between both ecosystems with on average around ten species. For both ecosystems, species diversity did not decrease along the studied disturbance gradient but encounter rates did. For the forest, we did not detect a decline in soil feeding termites and an increase of fungus grower Macrotermitinae with disturbance as some other studies did. Yet, soil feeders were generally rare. Strikingly, the set of morphologically difficult-to-identify Macrotermitinae ( Microtermes and Ancistrotermes ) was as high in the forest as in the savannah with little species overlap between both ecosystems. Using phylogenetic community analyses, we found little evidence for strong structuring mechanisms such as environmental filtering or interspecific competition. Most local assemblages did not differ significantly from random assemblages of the regional species pool. Our study is the most comprehensive of its kind. It provides the most reliable termite species list for West Africa that builds the basis for further ecological studies.

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Termite communities along a disturbance gradient in a West African savanna

Cited by 4 publications

References 37 publications

Ant and termite diversity in Indonesian oil palm plantation: Investigating the effect of natural habitat existence

Ant and termite diversity in Indonesian oil palm plantation: Investigating the effect of natural habitat existence

Termite diversity in Neotropical dry forests of Colombia and the potential role of rainfall in structuring termite diversity

A comparison of termite assemblages from West African savannah and forest ecosystems using morphological and molecular markers

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