ReviewCellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS2021
Termite evolution: mutualistic associations, key innovations, and the rise of Termitidae.
Review in Cellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 38 papers.
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Who cites it
38 citing papers in PubMed.
- The predatory behavior of ants: an impressive panoply of morphological adaptations.Insect science · 2026Review
- Unravelling the evolution of wood-feeding in termites with 47 high-resolution genome assemblies.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Termites and their gut microbiome in animal nutrition: Advances and biotechnological applications.Animal nutrition (Zhongguo xu mu shou yi xue hui) · 2025Review
- The Microbiome as a Protagonist of Xylophagous Insects in Adaptation to Environmental Conditions and Climate Change.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Ongoing human-mediated spread and hybridization of two major invasive termite species.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Effects of Colony Breeding System and Nest Architecture on Soil Microbiome and Fertility in the Fungus-Growing TermiteInsects · 2025Article
- Strict gut symbiont specificity in Coreoidea insects governed by interspecies competition within Caballeronia strains.The ISME journal · 2025Article
- A Novel Lineage of Endosymbiotic Actinomycetales: Genome Reduction and Acquisition of New Functions in Bifidobacteriaceae Associated With Termite Gut Flagellates.Environmental microbiology · 2025Article
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- Review
- Termites and subsocial roaches inherited many bacterial-borne carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes) from their common ancestor.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Unveiling lignocellulolytic potential: a genomic exploration of bacterial lineages within the termite gut.Microbiome · 2024Article
- Agricultural Pest Management: The Role of Microorganisms in Biopesticides and Soil Bioremediation.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Genomic data provide insights into the classification of extant termites.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Chemical and transcriptomic diversity do not correlate with ascending levels of social complexity in the insect order Blattodea.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- With a little help from my friends: the roles of microbial symbionts in insect populations and communities.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Review
- Resource adaptation drives the size-complexity rule in termites.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Characteristic processes of human evolution caused the Anthropocene and may obstruct its global solutions.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Review
- Metagenomics analysis of bacterial community structure from wood- and soil-feeding termites: metabolic pathways and functional structures toward the degradation of lignocellulose and recalcitrant compounds.Frontiers in microbiology · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Termites are a clade of eusocial wood-feeding roaches with > 3000 described species. Eusociality emerged ~ 150 million years ago in the ancestor of modern termites, which, since then, have acquired and sometimes lost a series of adaptive traits defining of their evolution. Termites primarily feed on wood, and digest cellulose in association with their obligatory nutritional mutualistic gut microbes. Recent advances in our understanding of termite phylogenetic relationships have served to provide a tentative timeline for the emergence of innovative traits and their consequences on the ecological success of termites. While all "lower" termites rely on cellulolytic protists to digest wood, "higher" termites (Termitidae), which comprise ~ 70% of termite species, do not rely on protists for digestion. The loss of protists in Termitidae was a critical evolutionary step that fostered the emergence of novel traits, resulting in a diversification of morphology, diets, and niches to an extent unattained by "lower" termites. However, the mechanisms that led to the initial loss of protists and the succession of events that took place in the termite gut remain speculative. In this review, we provide an overview of the key innovative traits acquired by termites during their evolution, which ultimately set the stage for the emergence of "higher" termites. We then discuss two hypotheses concerning the loss of protists in Termitidae, either through an externalization of the digestion or a dietary transition. Finally, we argue that many aspects of termite evolution remain speculative, as most termite biological diversity and evolutionary trajectories have yet to be explored.
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