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Termites are detritivores, consuming dead plants at any level of decomposition. They also play a very important role in the ecosystem by recycling waste material such as 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 major source (11%) of atmospheric methane, one of the prime greenhouse gases, produced in the breakdown of cellulose.84 Termites rely primarily upon symbiotic protozoa (metamonads) and other germs like flagellate protists in their guts to digest the cellulose for them, allowing them to absorb the end products to their own use.8586 Gut protozoa, such as Trichonympha, in turn, rely on symbiotic bacteria embedded on their own decks to produce a number of the necessary intestinal enzymes.
Certain species like Gnathamitermes tubiformans have seasonal food customs. By way of instance, 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 do 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 maple forests to other forests which were generally rejected by the termite colony.
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Some species 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 their termites to complete the cycle by germinating in the fresh faecal pellets.9394 Molecular evidence suggests that the family Macrotermitinae developed agriculture about 31 million decades back.
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 put into two classes: the lower termites and higher termites. The reduced vases predominately feed on wood. As wood isn't easy to digest, termites prefer to consume fungus-infected timber because it is a lot easier to digest and the fungi are high in protein. Meanwhile, the higher termites consume a vast array of materials, including faeces, humus, bud, leaves and roots.96 The intestine in the lower weeds 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 wide variety of predators. One termite species alone, Hodotermes mossambicus, has been found in the gut contents of 65 birds and 19 mammals.98 Arthropods such as ants,99100 centipedes, cockroaches, crickets, dragonflies, scorpions and spiders,101 reptiles such as lizards,102 and amphibians like frogs103 and toads consume termites, with two lions 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 finds its own food by sound and by detecting the scent secreted from the soldiers; a single aardwolf is capable of consuming thousands of termites in a single night by using its long, sticky tongue.110111 Sloth bears break open mounds to consume the nestmates, look these up whereas chimpanzees have grown resources to"fish" termites in their nest.
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Among all predators, ants are 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 execute raiding activities, some lasting a few hours.113114 Paltothyreus tarsatus is another termite-raiding species, together with every individual stacking as many termites as possible in link its mandibles before returning home, all of the while recruiting additional nestmates to the raiding site through chemical paths.99 The Malaysian basicerotine ants Eurhopalothrix heliscata utilizes a different strategy of termite hunting by pressing themselves into tight spaces, as they hunt through rotting wood housing termite colonies.
