Meiatermes cretacicus n. sp., an alate termite from the Early Cretaceous Crato Formation, Araripe Basin, northeastern Brazil. The new taxon is similar in many characteristics to other termites and primitive Spanish amber. rounded head pronotum, Y-shaped line, veins Sc, R, Rs M more heavily sclerotized than CuA, multiple branches, CuA well-developed are features shared with basal-most belonging ...

The potential use of termite-termite agonism in pest control is explored and evaluated. Intraand interspecific encounters among termites from different colonies are known to result in aggressive or avoidance behaviors in a variety of species. Recent studies suggest, however, that intraspecific confrontations only rarely evoke aggressive responses in several economically important termite genera...

Termites and ants contribute more to animal biomass in tropical rain forests than any other single group and perform vital ecosystem functions. Although ants prey on termites, at the community level the linkage between these groups is poorly understood. Thus, assessing the distribution and specificity of ant termitophagy is of considerable interest. We describe an approach for quantifying ant-t...

Deadwood is an important legacy structure in managed forests, providing continuity in shelter and resource availability for many organisms and acting as a vehicle by which nutrients can be passed from one stand to the next following a harvest. Despite existing at the interface between belowand above-ground systems, however, much remains unknown about the role woody debris plays in linking these...

Termites play important roles in lignocellulose and humus turnover in diverse terrestrial ecosystems, and are significant sources of global atmospheric methane and carbon dioxide. All known termite species engage in obligate, complex nutritional symbioses with their gut microbes to carry out such processes. Several hundred microbial species, representing a broad phylogenetic and physiological d...

Social insects exhibit a variety of caste-specific behavioral tendencies that constitute the basis of division of labor within the colony. In termites, the soldier caste display distinctive defense behaviors, such as aggressively attacking enemies with well-developed mandibles, while the other castes retreat into the colony without exhibiting any aggressive response. It is thus likely that some...

The eusocial termites are well accomplished in chemical communication, but how they achieve the communication using trace amount of no more than two pheromone components is mostly unknown. In this study, the foraging process and trail pheromones of the fungus-growing termite Odontotermes formosanus (Shiraki) were systematically studied and monitored in real-time using a combination of technique...

Historically most residential wood preservatives were aqueous soluble metal formulations, but recently metals ground to submicron size and dispersed in water to give particulate formulations have gained importance. In this study, the specific role nano-zinc oxide (ZnO) particle size and leach resistance plays in termite mortality resulting from exposure to particulate ZnO-treated wood was inves...

Alarm signalling is of paramount importance to communication in all social insects. In termites, vibroacoustic and chemical alarm signalling are bound to operate synergistically but have never been studied simultaneously in a single species. Here, we inspected the functional significance of both communication channels in Constrictotermes cyphergaster (Termitidae: Nasutitermitinae), confirming t...