Biology of Termites: A Modern Synthesis

Transcription

1 Biology of Termites: A Modern Synthesis

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3 David Edward Bignell Yves Roisin Nathan Lo Editors Biology of Termites: A Modern Synthesis Foreword by Bernard J. Crespi 123

4 Editors Prof. David Edward Bignell School of Biological and Chemical Sciences Queen Mary University of London Mile End Rd. E1 4NS London United Kingdom Prof. Yves Roisin Behavioural and Evolutionary Ecology Université Libre de Bruxelles Av. F.D. Roosevelt Bruxelles Belgium Dr. Nathan Lo School of Biological Sciences University of Sydney Macleay Bldg. A Sydney New South Wales Australia ISBN e-isbn DOI / Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York Library of Congress Control Number: Springer Science+Business Media B.V Chapter 19 is published with kind permission of CSIRO Australia All rights reserved No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Cover illustration: imagoes, soldiers, workers and larvae of Syntermes territus Emerson. Photo: Yves Roisin Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (

5 While preparing the final proofs of this volume, we learned with great sadness of the death of Professor Charles Noirot on 23 September 2010, at the age of 88. Noirot was the greatest termite biologist of his generation and arguably the greatest of any generation, past or present. No part of the field escaped his influence, not least since his publications at one time or another covered every conceivable facet of the subject, though most notably that of post-embryonic development and its regulation (Pasteels 2001), but principally because he refined the lexicon and set standards for the observation, documentation and analysis of termite societies and associations which we all follow today. Our world of termitology is the less for his passing, but hugely the greater for his life and work. We dedicate this book to his memory. London, UK Bruxelles, Belgium Sydney, Australia David Bignell Yves Roisin Nathan Lo Reference Pasteels JM (2001) Charles Noirot: an obligatory reference. Insect Soc 48:

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7 Foreword A greater and longer childhood: the comparative biology of termites. When I was a young graduate student, Richard Alexander instilled in me the importance of cutting one s teeth on a taxonomic group be it crickets, thrips, poison-dart frogs, barnacles or prairie dogs and letting the deep, unresolved biological questions well up from the vast diversity within even the most humble clade. Especially among insects, a fascination emerges from systematic-through-genomic familiarity, and even a love of small, idiosyncratic creatures can develop as they lead us through convoluted pathways and tunnels of discovery. Social insects hold a special place in the pantheons of biophilia, given the close parallels of their lives with ours. Who among us does not admit the abiding centrality of family life the mutualistic peace entwined with strife and conflicts, first when we are children and later with bairns of our own? Of all social insects, termites may fit most closely with the human condition, as parents, alloparents, builders, soldiers, and biochemical-genomic engineers, ensconced in extended nuclear families that expand and heroically defend their homes. But perhaps most of all, as children. Benjamin Franklin penned the phrase, our whole life is but a greater and longer childhood, referring to ourselves, but equally applicable to termite evolution since the first cockroach helped its mother and father rear a younger sibling. A greatlyextended childhood has indeed been seen as key to modern human evolution (Hrdy 2009; Konner 2010), and it was certainly crucial to unlocking the potential of termites to dominate the globe. For both humans and isopterans, early development in a relatively-safe, nourishing niche potentiated such a heterochronic yet plastic shift, and led ultimately to a broad swath of ecological, morphological and behavioral specializations, as well as expansion of family conflicts and confluences of interest beyond those of almost all other creatures. This book draws the vast diversity of termite adaptations together in the framework of a range of greater unresolved biological questions, from genetics through ecology and social behavior to macroevolution, that termites, as such-special insects, can help us answer. As such, the book brings into sharp focus the tremendous usefulness of termites as research systems, and the close interplay between vii

8 viii Foreword systematics, evolutionary biology, ecology, and other, more-proximate and mechanistic disciplines. Each chapter celebrates in rigorous up to date detail, some vital facet of termite biology: their taxonomy, phylogeny, genetics, symbioses, physiology, morphology, pheromones, ecology, behavior, and status as pests, all linked by the unique characteristics, and the extended or lifelong childhoods, that define the group. As such, this book is indispensible to any serious student of Isoptera, as a source of facts, ideas, and syntheses upon which to build our future understanding. Indeed, the advances in termite biology since the last comprehensive compendium in 2000 are spectacular from endogenous cellulases, facultatively-asexual queens, to establishment of firm links between ecology, life history and social structure that permit robust comparisons with other taxa. And with humans, of course. The origin and form of human childhood can be seen as an evolutionary battleground of parent versus beloved-offspring strategies and countering moves: children selected to delay the age of puberty and accrue marginally-more investment, mothers selected to shorten age at weaning, reduce inter-birth intervals, and become more queen-like than any other primate (Haig 2010). Among termites, analysing evolutionary trajectories of life-history timing and inter-family interactions awaits fine-scale, dovetailed phylogenetic and behavioral-ecological studies, that are likely to further astonish and please human termitophiles in part due to their implications for all areas of isopteran biology. This book provides the scaffold for building, conceptually and empirically, across all such disciplines and questions. For many students of termites, the book comes at a special time, after we have lost intellectual parents of social-insect biology, Ross Crozier and William Hamilton, and must ourselves build on their ideas. Biology of Termites: a Modern Synthesis should serve as inspiration and foundation for new discoveries that would make them proud and fascinated by the ongoing complexities of children and social life under soil and bark. Vancouver, Canada Bernard J. Crespi References Haig D (2010) Transfers and transitions: parent-offspring conflict, genomic imprinting, and the evolution of human life history. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 107(Suppl 1): Hrdy S (2009) Mothers and others: the evolutionary origins of mutual understanding. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Konner M (2010) The evolution of childhood. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

9 Preface The initiative for this new volume was made in 2007 by Springer and came a few years after their merger (in 2003) with the Kluwer organisation, which had published the successful preceding compilation Termites: evolution, sociality, symbioses, ecology (Abe T, Bignell DE, Higashi M (eds) (2000) Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 466p). The Kluwer book had been the first attempt to draw together the many different threads of academic termite science since the three monumental volumes of P-P Grassé s Termitologia (Masson, Paris, 1983, 1984, 1985), and the first academic research compendium in English since the two classic volumes of Biology of Termites edited by Krishna K and Weesner FM (Academic Press, New York, NY, 1969, 1970). The purposes of the present book are (1) to provide extended coverage to areas of termite science which have advanced spectacularly since 2000, these being largely fields in which extensive molecular data have now become available (phylogeny and biogeography, immune defence, population genetics, caste determination, digestive biochemistry and intestinal microbiology) (2) to reflect new concepts of eusociality in termites and to present the emerging views of social evolution within the Isoptera, now that this group has been confirmed as a monophyletic lineage (3) to provide points of comparison with ants and some other social Hymenoptera, on social organisation and co-evolution with symbionts (4) to provide consolidating reviews in selected areas where the literature has continued to grow (cladistic taxonomy, mound architecture and function, intestinal morphology and function, community ecology and pest status for wood in service) and (5) to present reviews that were notably absent from the 2000 Kluwer book (chemical ecology and termites as pests of agriculture). Our expectation is that the new book will be regarded as the standard reference work for about a decade, and will help termites to be seen as good models for fundamental research in developmental biology, microbial ecology and social evolution, as well as major players in the ecology of the biosphere, with impact in many areas of the human economy. We made a deliberate decision not to commission updates in certain areas that were covered in These were palaeontology, foraging, intracellular symbiosis, symbiosis with protists (sensu stricto), energy metabolism, population ecology, termites and soils, and greenhouse gas production. In some cases these topics are now ix

10 x Preface subsumed under other headings, so that new material will still be reported, and in other cases our feeling is that the existing literature (including reviews published elsewhere in the last 10 years) is sufficient. We remind readers that termite biology still rests on the large body of older descriptive material of an essentially timeless nature (for example covering morphology, anatomy, behaviour, nest architecture and economic damages) and that in these respects the volumes by Krishna and Weesner and by Grassé are in no sense outdated. As before, we debated whether applied termite biology (termite control) should have a place in an academic book: the outcome is two pleasingly complementary chapters (18 and 19) dealing, respectively, with termites in agriculture and with invasive species which defy the high endemicity otherwise shown by isopterans. Both chapters explore contemporary concepts and contain extensive bibliographies. Although we have now passed the 10th anniversary of their untimely deaths, we still need to acknowledge that the main modern initiative to draw leading termite biologists together to identify the major advances and issues in the field was that of Takuya Abe and Masahiko Higashi, so in that sense the new book is still very much their legacy. We can also acknowledge the influence of the late Ross Crozier in advancing the science of social insect genetics, the fruit of which is much in evidence in this volume. In commissioning authors for the book, the editors have tried to balance contributions between the major countries where termite research is supported and carried out: thus the UK, USA, France, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Portugal, Japan and Australia are all represented. Authors from developing countries where termites are important organisms are still missing, but this absence will surely not persist for another decade. A taxonomic index, with authorities and information on synonymy, will be published separately at a future date. London, UK Bruxelles, Belgium Sydney, Australia 27 May 2010 David E. Bignell Yves Roisin Nathan Lo

11 Contents 1 An Introduction to Termites: Biology, Taxonomy and Functional Morphology... 1 Paul Eggleton 2 Termite Phylogenetics and Co-cladogenesis with Symbionts Nathan Lo and Paul Eggleton 3 Evolution and Function of Endogenous Termite Cellulases Nathan Lo, Gaku Tokuda, and Hirofumi Watanabe 4 Altricial Development in Wood-Feeding Cockroaches: The Key Antecedent of Termite Eusociality Christine A. Nalepa 5 Eusocial Evolution in Termites and Hymenoptera Kenneth J. Howard and Barbara L. Thorne 6 Social Organisation and the Status of Workers in Termites Yves Roisin and Judith Korb 7 Ecology, Behavior and Evolution of Disease Resistance in Termites Rebeca B. Rosengaus, James F.A. Traniello, and Mark S. Bulmer 8 Comparative Biology of Fungus Cultivation in Termites and Ants Tânia Nobre, Corinne Rouland-Lefèvre, and Duur K. Aanen 9 Molecular Basis Underlying Caste Differentiation in Termites Toru Miura and Michael E. Scharf 10 Sexual and Asexual Reproduction in Termites Kenji Matsuura 11 Pheromones and Chemical Ecology of Dispersal and Foraging in Termites Christian Bordereau and Jacques M. Pasteels xi

12 xii Contents 12 Genetic Structure of Termite Colonies and Populations Edward L. Vargo and Claudia Husseneder 13 Termite Mound Architecture, from Function to Construction Judith Korb 14 Morphology, Physiology, Biochemistry and Functional Design of the Termite Gut: An Evolutionary Wonderland David E. Bignell 15 Diversity, Structure, and Evolution of the Termite Gut Microbial Community Moriya Ohkuma and Andreas Brune 16 Role of the Termite Gut Microbiota in Symbiotic Digestion Andreas Brune and Moriya Ohkuma 17 Global Biogeography of Termites: A Compilation of Sources David T. Jones and Paul Eggleton 18 Termites as Pests of Agriculture Corinne Rouland-Lefèvre 19 Invasive Termites Theodore A. Evans Index

13 Contributors Duur K. Aanen Laboratory of Genetics, Wageningen University, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands, David E. Bignell School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary, University of London, London E1 4NS, UK; Institute for Tropical Biology and Conservation, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia, Christian Bordereau Développement et Communication Chimique chez les Insectes, Université de Bourgogne, F Dijon, France, Andreas Brune Department of Biogeochemistry, Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Marburg, Germany, Mark S. Bulmer Department of Biological Sciences, Towson University, MD 21252, USA, Paul Eggleton Termite Research Group and Soil Biodiversity Programme, Entomology Department, Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, UK, Theodore A. Evans CSIRO Division of Entomology, Canberra ACT 2600, Australia, Kenneth J. Howard Department of Entomology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA, Claudia Husseneder Department of Entomology, LSU Agricultural Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA, David T. Jones Soil Biodiversity Group, Department of Entomology, Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, UK, Judith Korb Behavioural Biology, University of Osnabrueck, D Osnabrueck, Germany, xiii

14 xiv Contributors Nathan Lo Behaviour and Genetics of Social Insects Laboratory, School of Biological Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia, Kenji Matsuura Laboratory of Insect Ecology, Graduate School of Environmental Science, Okayama University, Okayama , Japan, Toru Miura Laboratory of Ecological Genetics, Graduate School of Environmental Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo , Japan, Christine A. Nalepa Entomology Department, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC , USA, Tânia Nobre Laboratory of Genetics, Wageningen University, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands, Moriya Ohkuma Microbe Division (Japan Collection of Microorganisms), RIKEN BioResource Center, Saitama , Japan, Jacques M. Pasteels Evolutionary Biology and Ecology, Université Libre de Bruxelles, B-1050 Bruxelles, Belgium, Yves Roisin Evolutionary Biology and Ecology, Faculté des Sciences, Université Libre de Bruxelles, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium, Rebeca B. Rosengaus Department of Biology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA, Corinne Rouland-Lefèvre Unité de recherche Biodiversité et fonctionnement du sol, Institut de recherche pour le développement, Bondy Cedex, France, Michael E. Scharf Entomology and Nematology Department, University of Florida, Gainsville, FL , USA, Barbara L. Thorne Department of Entomology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA, Gaku Tokuda Tropical Biosphere Research Center, COMB, University of the Ryukyus, Nishihara , Japan, James F.A. Traniello Department of Biology, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA, Edward L. Vargo Department of Entomology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA, Hirofumi Watanabe National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences, Tsukuba , Japan,