ArticleFrontiers in zoology2021
Differential time allocation of foraging workers in the subterranean termite.
Article in Frontiers in zoology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Chemical and microbial regulators of foraging behaviors in subterranean termites.Pest management science · 2026Review
- How do termite baits work? implication of subterranean termite colony demography on the successful implementation of baits.Journal of economic entomology · 2025Review
- Changes of division of labour along the eusociality spectrum in termites, with comparisons to multicellularity.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Effects of the surface irregularity of termite tunnels on food transport efficiency: a simulation study.Journal of insect science (Online) · 2023Article
- Age-based spatial distribution of workers is resilient to worker loss in a subterranean termite.Scientific reports · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundForaging in group living animals such as social insects, is collectively performed by individuals. However, our understanding on foraging behavior of subterranean termites is extremely limited, as the process of foraging in the field is mostly concealed. Because of this limitation, foraging behaviors of subterranean termites were indirectly investigated in the laboratory through tunnel geometry analysis and observations on tunneling behaviors. In this study, we tracked subsets of foraging workers from juvenile colonies of Coptotermes formosanus (2-yr-old) to describe general foraging behavioral sequences and to find how foraging workers allocate time between the foraging site (food acquisition or processing) and non-foraging site (food transportation).
resultsOnce workers entered into the foraging site, they spent, on average, a significantly longer time at the foraging site than the non-foraging site. Our clustering analysis revealed two different types of foraging workers in the subterranean termite based on the duration of time they spent at the foraging site and their foraging frequency. After entering the foraging site, some workers (cluster 1) immediately initiated masticating wood fragments, which they transferred as food boluses to recipient workers at the foraging site. Conversely, the recipient workers (cluster 2) moved around after entering the foraging site and received food from donating workers.
conclusionsThis study provides evidence of task specialization within foraging cohorts in subterranean termites.
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