Absence of Relationship Among Termite (Insecta: Isoptera) Richness, Functional Groups and Environmental Variables in Southern Brazil

Authors

  • Elena Diehl Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, RN
  • Eduardo Diehl-Fleig Instituto do Cérebro, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, RN
  • Luciane Kern Junqueira Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas, Campinas, SP

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.12741/ebrasilis.v8i3.491

Keywords:

Bioclimatic variables, Biodiversity, Species composition, Trophic groups, Composição de espécies, Biodiversidade, Grupos tróficos, Variáveis bioclimáticas

Abstract

In the temperate zones, termites play a minor ecological role, while, in the tropics, they dominate among the decomposing invertebrates, corresponding to about 10% of the total animal biomass and up to 95% of the soil insect biomass. At the same time, the tropical zones have more productive environments, lower climatic variation, greater ecological stability, and are richer in species. In this study, we evaluated termite species richness, composition, and trophic groups in 14 sites at different altitudes distributed in the State of Rio Grande do Sul, Southern Brazil from previous published surveys. We tested whether there would be a pattern linking those three variables to altitude and bioclimatic factors. We found no significant correlation between species richness and altitude. Bioclimatic variables did not explain the differences in species composition neither in functional group. However, species number, though not statistically different, and composition varied among sampling sites. We suggest that further surveys should be conducted along with greater collection effort and number of sampled sites as to provide a better understanding of the factors affecting the termite fauna of Southern Brazil.

Ausência de Relação Entre Riqueza, Grupo Funcional e Variáveis Ambientais para Térmitas (Insecta: Isoptera) no Sul do Brasil

Resumo. Nas zonas temperadas, os térmitas têm um papel ecológico reduzido, enquanto que, nos trópicos, dominam entre os invertebrados decompositores e correspondem a cerca de 10% do total da biomassa animal e quase 95% da biomassa de insetos de solo. Ao mesmo tempo, as zonas tropicais possuem ambientes mais produtivos, menor variação climática, maior estabilidade ecológica e riqueza de espécies. No presente trabalho, avaliamos a riqueza, composição e os grupos funcionais dos térmitas de 14 localidades em diferentes altitudes no Rio Grande do Sul, sul do Brasil, a partir de dados já publicados. Testamos se existiria um padrão relacionando essas três variáveis à altitude e aos fatores bioclimáticos. Os resultados não mostraram correlação significativa entre riqueza de espécies e altitude, assim como os fatores bioclimáticos não explicaram a variação na composição de espécies e dos grupos funcionais. No entanto, o número, embora não significativo, e a composição de espécies foram diferentes entre os locais de coleta. Sugerimos a ampliação dos levantamentos, com maior esforço amostral e maior número de pontos amostrados, para identificar os fatores ambientais que influenciam a termitofauna do sul do Brasil.

References

Almeida, J.E.M. & S.B. Alves, 1995. Sele

Araujo, R.L., 1977. Cat

Bignell, D.E. & P. Eggleton, 2000. Termites in ecosystems, p. 363-387. In: Abe, T., D.E. Bignell, & M. Higashi (Eds.). Termites: Evolution, sociality, symbioses, ecology. Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 466 p.

Bignell, D.E., Y. Roisin, & N. Lo, 2011. Biology of termites: a modern synthesis. London, Springer, 576 p.

Cancello, E.M., 1989. Revis

Cancello, E.M., 2002. Termite diversity along the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, p. 164. In: International Congress of IUSSI. Proceedings. Hokkaido University. Sapporo.

Cancello, E.M. & T. Schlemmermeyer, 1999. Reino Animalia: Isoptera, p. 82-91. In: Brand

Cancello, E.M., R.R. Silva, A. Vasconcellos, Y.T. Reis, & L.M. Oliveira, 2014. Latitudinal variation in termite species richness and abundance along the Brazilian Atlantic Forest hotspot. Biotropica, 46: 441-450.

Collins, N.M., 1980. The distribution of soil macrofauna on the west ridge of Gunung (Mount) Mulu, Sarawak. Oecologia (Berlin), 44: 263-275.

Collins, N.M., 1981. The role of termites in the decomposition of wood and leaf litter in the southern Guinea Savanna of Nigeria. Oecologia (Berlin), 51: 389-399.

Constantino R., 1994. A new genus of Nasutitermitinae with mandibulate soldiers from tropical North America (Isoptera: Termitidae). Sociobiology, 25: 285-294.

Constantino, R., 1998. Catalog of the living termites of the new world (Insecta: Isoptera). Arquivos de Zoologia, 35: 135-260.

Constantino, R., 1999. Chave ilustrada para identifica

Constantino, R., 2002. An illustrated key to Neotropical termite genera (Insecta: Isoptera) based primarily on soldiers. Zootaxa, 67: 1-40.

Constantino, R., 2013. On-line termite database. http://164.41.140.9/catal/. Accessed in: 15 November, 2013.

Davies, R.G., 2002. Feeding group responses of a Neotropical termite assemblage to rain forest fragmentation. Oecologia (Berlin), 133: 233-242.

De Souza, O.F.F. & V.K. Brown, 1994. Effects of habitat fragmentation on Amazonian termite communities. Journal of Tropical Ecology, 10: 197-206.

Del Grosso, S., W. Parton, T. Stohlgren, D. Zheng, D. Bachelet, S. Prince, K. Hibbard & R. Olson., 2008. Global potential net primary production predicted from vegetation class, precipitation, and temperature. Ecology, 89: 2117-2126.

Diehl, E., M.E. da Silva, & R. de Castilhos-Fortes, 1995. O problema dos cupins no Rio Grande do Sul, p. 53-56. In: Berti Filho, E. & L.R. Fontes (Eds.). Alguns aspectos atuais da biologia e ecologia dos cupins. Piracicaba, FEALQ, 184 p.

Diehl, E., Ed. Diehl-Fleig, E.Z. de Albuquerque, & L.K. Junqueira, 2014. Richness of termites and ants in the State of Rio Grande do Sul, Southern Brazil. Sociobiology, 61: 145-154.

Diniz-Filho, J.A., P. de Marco Jr. & B.A. Hawkins, 2010. Defying the curse of ignorance: Perspectives in insect agroecology and conservation biogeography. Insect Conservation Diversity, 3: 172-179.

Donovan, S. E., P. Eggleton & A. Martin, 2002. Species composition of termites of the Nyika plateau forests, northern Malwi, over an altitudinal gradient. African Journal of Ecology, 40: 379-385.

Dray, S., P. Legendre, & P.R. Peres-Neto, 2006. Spatial modelling: a comprehensive framework for principal coordinate analysis of neighbour matrices (PCNM). Ecological Modelling, 19: 483-493.

Dray, S., R. P

Eggleton, P., 2000. Global patterns of termite diversity, p. 25

Eggleton, P., D.E. Bignell, W.A. Sands, B. Waite, T.G. Wood, & J.H. Lawton, 1995. The species richness of termites (Isoptera) under differing levels of forest disturbance in the Mbalmayo Forest Reserve, southern Cameroon. Journal of Tropical Ecology, 11: 85-98.

Eggleton, P., D.E. Bignell, W.A. Sands, N.A. Mawdsley, J.H. Lawton, T.G. Wood, & N.C. Bignell, 1996. The diversity, abundance and biomass of termites under differing levels of disturbance in the Mbalmayo Forest Reserve, southern Cameroon. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Ser. B, Biological Sciences, 351: 51-68.

Eggleton, P., R. Homathevi, D. Jeeva, D.T. Jones, R.G. Davies, & M. Maryati, 1997. The species richness and composition of termites (Isoptera) in primary and regenerating lowland dipterocarp forest in Sabah, East Malaysia Ecotropica, 3: 119-128.

Eggleton, P. & I. Tayasu, 2001. Feeding groups, lifetypes and the global ecology of termites. Ecological Research, 16: 941-960.

Emerson, A.E., 1952. The Neotropical genera Procornitermes and Cornitermes (Isoptera: Termitidae). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 99: 475-540.

Fontes, L.R., 1985. Acr

Fontes, L.R., 1992. Key to the genera of New World Apicotermitinae (Isoptera: Termitidae), p. 242-248. In: Quintero, D. & A. Aiello (Eds.). Insects of Panama and Mesoamerica. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 714 p.

Fontes, L.R., 1995. Sistem

Fontes, L.R., 1998. Novos aditamentos ao

Fontes, L.R. & R.L. de Araujo, 1999. Os cupins, p. 35

Gathorne-Hardy, F., Syaurani & P. Eggleton, 2001. The effects of altitude and rainfall on the composition of the termites (Isoptera) of the Leuser Ecosystem (Sumatra, Indonesia). Journal of Tropical Ecology, 17: 379-393.

Hijmans, R.J., S.E. Cameron, J.L. Parra, P.G. Jones & A. Jarvis, 2005. Very high resolution interpolated climate surfaces for global land areas. International Journal of Climatology, 25: 1965-1978.

Inoue, T., Y. Takematsu, A. Yamada, Y. Hongoh, T. Johjima, S. Moriya, Y. Sornnuwat, C. Vongkaluang, M. Ohkuma, & T. Kudo, 2006. Diversity and abundance of termites along an altitudinal gradient in Khao Kitchagoot National Park, Thailand. Journal of Tropical Ecology, 22: 609-612.

Jones, D.T., 2000. Termite assemblages in two distinct Montane forest types at 1000 m elevation in the Maliau Basin, Sabah. Journal of Tropical Ecology, 16: 271-286.

Jones, D.T. & M.J.D. Brendell, 1998. The termite (Insecta: Isoptera) fauna of Pasoh Forest Reserve, Malaysia. Raffles Bulletin of Zoology, 46: 79-91.

Krishna, L. & R.L. Araujo, 1968. A revision of the Neotropical termite genus Neocapritermes (Isoptera, Termitidae, Termitinae). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 138: 83-130.

Kusnezow, N., 1957. Numbers of species of ants in faunae of different latitudes. Evolution, 11: 298-299.

Laffont, E.R., G.J. Torales, M.O. Arbino, M.C. Godoy, E.A. Porcel, & J.M. Coronel, 1998. T

Laffont, E.R., G.J. Torales, J.M. Coronel, M.O. Arbino, & M.C. Godoy, 2004. Termites (Insecta, Isoptera) fauna from natural parks of the northeast region of Argentina. Scientia Agricola, 61: 665-670.

Legendre, P. & L. Legendre, 2012. Numerical Ecology, 3rd Ed. Oxford, Elsevier, 990 p.

Machac, A., M. Janda, R.R. Dunn & N.J. Sanders, 2011. Elevational gradients in phylogenetic structure of ant communities reveal the interplay of biotic and abiotic constraints on diversity. Ecography, 34: 364-371.

McCain, C.M., 2009. Global analysis of bird elevational diversity. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 18: 346-360.

Mathews, A.G.A., 1977. Studies on termites from the Mato Grosso State, Brazil. Rio de Janeiro, Academia Brasileira de Ci

Oksanen, J.F., G. Blanchet, R. Kindt, P. Legendre, P.R. Minchin, R.B. O

Palin, O.F., P. Eggleton, Y. Malhi, C.A.J. Girardin, A. Rozas-D

R Core Team, 2013. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for statistical computing, Vienna, Austria. Available on <http://www.R-project.org/>.

Rahbek, C., 2005. The role of spatial scale and the perception of large-scale species-richness patterns. Ecology Letters, 8: 224-239.

Rezende, B.R., 2012. H

Roberts, D.W., 2013. Labdsv: Ordination and multivariate analysis for ecology. R package version 1.6-1. Available on <http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=labdsv>.

Sundqvist, M.K., N.J. Sanders, & D.A. Wardle, 2013. Community and ecosystem responses to elevational gradients: processes, mechanisms, and insights for global change. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, 44:261-280.

Torales, G. J., E.R. Laffont; M.C. Godoi, J.M. Coronel & M.O. Arbino, 2005. Update on taxonomy and distribution of Isoptera from Argentina. Sociobiology, 45: 853-886.

Ward, P.S., 2000. Broad-scale patterns of diversity in leaf litter ant communities, p. 99-121. In: Agosti, D., J.D. Majer, L.E. Alonso & T.R. Schulz (Eds.). Ants: Standard methods for measuring and monitoring biodiversity. Washington, Smithsonian Inst. Press, 280 p.

Downloads

Published

2015-12-21

How to Cite

[1]
Diehl, E., Diehl-Fleig, E. and Kern Junqueira, L. 2015. Absence of Relationship Among Termite (Insecta: Isoptera) Richness, Functional Groups and Environmental Variables in Southern Brazil. EntomoBrasilis. 8, 3 (Dec. 2015), 168–173. DOI:https://doi.org/10.12741/ebrasilis.v8i3.491.

Issue

Section

Ecology