Felicitas Gunter, J. Oldeland, J. Henschel, M. Picker, N. Jürgens
{"title":"Reproduction of sand termites and local genetic patterns","authors":"Felicitas Gunter, J. Oldeland, J. Henschel, M. Picker, N. Jürgens","doi":"10.7809/b-e.00365","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7809/b-e.00365","url":null,"abstract":"Fairy circles are created, used and maintained by sand termites of the species complex Psammotermes allocerus. We used Amplified Fragment Length Analyses (AFLP) for a study of the genetic diversity pattern of termites from clusters of neighboring fairy circles. Our results suggest that all termites found within one fairy circle genetically are members of one colony. The neighboring colonies are genetically differing from each other. This observation supports the hypothesis that colonies are founded by reproductive alates flying in from further away and not by budding from a near-by colony.","PeriodicalId":402880,"journal":{"name":"Biodiversity & Ecology","volume":"50 2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129341060","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Felicitas Gunter, J. Oldeland, J. Henschel, M. Picker, N. Jürgens
{"title":"Not one but several: Morphological diversity within the sand termite","authors":"Felicitas Gunter, J. Oldeland, J. Henschel, M. Picker, N. Jürgens","doi":"10.7809/b-e.00363","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7809/b-e.00363","url":null,"abstract":"Termite species are generally identified based on morphological differences of soldiers. This approach is here applied for the sand termite species Psammotermes allocerus. By using high quality resolution images, measurements of 26 traits of head, labrum and mandibles, the CART method, as well as geometric-morphometric shape analyses of mandibles of large soldiers (> 7mm in total body lengths) a discrimination between soldiers of three geographical regions is possible. Soldiers collected from the Succulent Karoo, Southern Namib and Northern Namib differ significantly from each other. This study is a first attempt to show strong morphological variation and differentiation within the sand termite Psammotermes allocerus from the arid regions. Further research in additional geographical regions and the comparison of different development stages of soldiers are needed for a complete assessment of the morphological diversity of species.","PeriodicalId":402880,"journal":{"name":"Biodiversity & Ecology","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127884425","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}