Phylogenetics of Termites

Kansas State University, Manhattan KS

Investigators

Abstract

9980253 Kambhampati Termites (Order Isoptera: Class Insecta) are social insects like ants and bees. Over 2000 species of termites are known at present and many of them occur in the tropics. Some termite species are considered pests in the United States and other parts of the world because they damage houses and crops. However, a vast majority of termites perform an extremely valuable role in ecological communities. Dead wood (e.g., fallen logs in forests) cannot be digested by most organisms because it contains cellulose, a polymer that requires special enzymes to break it down. If the wood is not broken down, the nutrients trapped in it will not be released into the soil for use by other animals and plants. Termites are by the far the most important of the wood degraders because of their numbers and their ability to produce the enzyme cellulase, the enzyme needed to break down cellulose. It is fair to say that many tropical rain forests would not exist as we know them but for the action of termites. In addition to this role, termites are interesting from an evolutionary perspective because they are social insects. Despite their obvious importance, little research has been done on termite evolution, relative to, for example, other social insects such as ants, bees and wasps. The proposed studies are an attempt to understand the evolutionary relationships among different groups (families, subfamilies and genera) of termites. We will use DNA sequencing technology to infer the evolutionary relationships among the various termite groups. The existing proposals for such relationships are either based on outdated methodology or on unreliable characters and therefore need reexamination. The resulting phylogenetic tree will be an invaluable resource for future evolutionary studies on termites because various traits pertaining to behavior, development, etc., can be mapped onto the tree. The proposed research will lead to a better understanding of the evolution of a large group of eusocial insects and their life histories.