Termites listen to their food

[Martin Coleman]

Melbourne, Australia

Termite mealtime
These termites only munch on wood if they have good vibrations

Termites decide if wood is safe to eat by listening to it first, Australian scientists show.

They say their findings, published in today's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may lead to better ways of protecting wood from termite damage.

CSIRO and University of New South Wales' Australian Defence Force Academy researchers recorded the sound of worker drywood termites (Cryptotermes domesticus).

The researchers recorded them walking and feeding on large and small blocks of wood.

The researchers then looked at what happened when these blind termites 'heard' different recordings played through blocks of wood cut from the same tree.

Termites detect sound by sensing vibrations through their legs and antennae.

The researchers found termites chose smaller wood blocks when in a new environment and avoided blocks of wood when they heard sounds of other termites feeding.

"They generally prefer larger pieces of wood but drywood termites are small shy creatures and I think they are bullied a bit by the larger species," says lead author Dr Theodore Evans from CSIRO Entomology.

"[But] when they are not sure about what is going on they will go for the smaller pieces of wood because they know they are the only ones there.

"If we leave them for longer they will them go for the larger pieces of wood over time," he says, as they become more comfortable with their environment.

Evans believes it is the drywood termite's ability to feed on small pieces of wood that has allowed it to spread around the world while other species that only feed on large pieces of wood have not.

Evans also says that fewer worker termites matured into breeder termites when recordings of other termites were played, suggesting the vibrations play a role in termite colony communication and reproduction.

Controlling termites

Evans says previous termite research tended to look at how taste and chemical composition of wood influenced termite feeding.

But he says this discovery of the importance of detecting a safe wood to eat by vibration could influence future termite protection systems.

"If we can understand how they gather the information and what information is important then maybe how we can interrupt that process," he says.

He says that people are generally moving away from controlling termites with chemicals to using barrier methods.
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[rick green]

In general, we find that more termites are recruited to larger bait stations, whether they contain wood or cardboard. This also implies that termite foragers can somehow judge the size of the food souce they have discovered. This provides a distinct advantage to larger bait stations for suppression and elimination of colonies.