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Termites are detritivores, consuming dead plants at any degree of decomposition. They also play a vital role in the ecosystem by recycling waste material like dead wood, faeces and plants.8182 Many species consume cellulose, having a specialised midgut that divides down the fibre.83 Termites are considered to be a significant source (11%) of atmospheric methane, one of the prime greenhouse gases, generated in the breakdown of cellulose.84 Termites depend mainly upon symbiotic protozoa (metamonads) and other microbes like flagellate protists in their guts to digest the cellulose to them, allowing them to absorb the end products for their own use.8586 Gut protozoa, such as Trichonympha, in turn, rely on symbiotic bacteria embedded on their surfaces to produce a number of the necessary intestinal enzymes.
Certain species such as Gnathamitermes tubiformans have seasonal food customs. By way of example, they might preferentially consume Red three-awn (Aristida longiseta) during the summertime, Buffalograss (Buchloe dactyloides) from May to August, and blue grama Bouteloua gracilis during spring, summer and autumn. Colonies of G. tubiformans consume less food in spring than they perform during autumn when their feeding activity is high.91.
Numerous woods differ in their susceptibility to termite attack; the differences are attributed to these factors as moisture content, hardness, and resin and lignin content. In one study, the drywood termite Cryptotermes brevis strongly preferred poplar and walnut forests to other forests that were generally rejected by the termite colony.
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Some varieties of termite practice fungiculture. They maintain that a"garden" of specialised fungi of genus Termitomyces, which are nourished from the excrement of these insects. When the fungi are eaten, their spores pass undamaged through the intestines of the termites to complete the cycle by germinating in the fresh faecal pellets.9394 Molecular evidence suggests that the family Macrotermitinae developed agriculture roughly 31 million decades ago.
Originally living in the rainforest, fungus farming enabled them to colonise the African savannah and other new environments, eventually expanding into Asia.95.
Depending on their feeding habits, termites are placed into two classes: the lower termites and higher termites. The lower termites predominately feed on wood. As wood is difficult to digest, termites want to consume fungus-infected wood because it is easier to digest and anonymous the fungi are high in protein. Meanwhile, the bigger termites consume a wide variety of materials, including faeces, humus, bud, leaves and roots.96 The gut in the lower termites contains many species of bacteria along with protozoa, while the higher termites only have a few species of bacteria with no protozoa.97.
Termites are consumed by a vast array of predators. One termite species alone, Hodotermes mossambicus, has been found in the gut contents of 65 creatures and 19 mammals.98 Arthropods such as ants,99100 centipedes, cockroaches, crickets, dragonflies, scorpions and spiders,101 reptiles like lizards,102 and amphibians like frogs103 and toads consume termites, together with two spiders in the family Ammoxenidae being specialist termite predators.104106 Other predators include aardvarks, aardwolves, anteaters, bats, bears, bilbies, many birds, echidnas, foxes, galagos, numbats, mice and pangolins.104107108109 The aardwolf is an insectivorous mammal that mostly feeds on termites; it locates its foods by sound and also by detecting the scent secreted from the soldiers; a single aardwolf is effective at consuming thousands of termites in a single night by using its long, sticky tongue.110111 Sloth bears break open mounds to consume the nestmates, while chimpanzees have developed tools to"fish" termites from their nest.
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Among most predators, ants will be the best enemy to termites.99100 Some ant genera are specialist predators of termites. By way of example, Megaponera is a rigorously termite-eating (termitophagous) genus that perform raiding actions, some lasting several hours.113114 Paltothyreus tarsatus is another termite-raiding species, with each individual stacking as many termites as possible in its click this link mandibles before returning home, all of the while recruiting additional nestmates to browse around this web-site the raiding site through chemical trails.99 The Malaysian basicerotine ants Eurhopalothrix heliscata utilizes a different strategy of termite hunting by pressing themselves into tight spaces, since they hunt through rotting wood housing termite colonies.
