Complexity Of Termite Symbiotic Relationships With Fungi Could Hinder Control Of This Pest

Editor's note: The following was excerpted from a Science Daily article "Complexity Of Termite Symbiotic Relationships With Fungi Could Hinder The Control Of This Pest." Click here to read the entire article.

All species of termites are social insects, like ants. Entomologists have listed over 2000 species across the world and more than one-third of them live in Africa. This continent harbours 160 from the subfamily Macrotermitinae. Contrary to other termites, the species of this subfamily-cannot digest either cellulose or lignin, basic constituents of their food plants, and therefore call on the services of a symbiotic relationship with a higher fungus. Using roughly chewed and only slightly digested plant material, they make a small ventilated structure, the fungus comb or garden, on which the mycelium of a Termitomyces, a Basidiomycete fungus of the same family as the Lepiota, will grow.

This fungus will gradually break down the ligneous and cellulose-bearing material amassed on the comb into substances that are easier for the termites to assimilate. The entomologists focusing on these fascinating social insects have long considered the symbiotic relationship between the Macrotermitinae and the fungus Termitomyces was one of interaction specificity, in that one species of termite associated with a single species of fungus, following a system elaborated by co-evolution that began several tens of millions of years ago.

A study recently published by an international research team, jointly involving IRD scientists, brought proof that this symbiotic relationship is much more complex and diversified than was suspected.

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Source: Science Daily