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Termites and wood roaches play a vital role in the Earth's ecosystems. They are sometimes even known as “ecosystem engineers”. [13] Their consumption and degradation of wood and wood related foods has a major impact on the carbon cycle. [13] Unfortunately, the wood eating of termites and wood roaches also has a negative impact.
Termites are a group of detritophagous eusocial insects which consume a variety of decaying plant material, generally in the form of wood, leaf litter, and soil humus.They are distinguished by their moniliform antennae and the soft-bodied and often unpigmented worker caste for which they have been commonly termed "white ants"; however, they are not ants, being more closely related to ...
Frass (termite droppings): Subterranean termites push out their waste, known as frass, through small holes in the infested wood. It looks like tiny pellets and can accumulate below the infested area.
Despite the popular reputation of termites for breaking down and digesting wood, most termite species do not possess the capability to digest the cellulose in wood. Macrotermitinae instead use their mounds to cultivate fungus in a symbiotic relationship, similar to leaf-cutter ants (fungus-cultivating ants). Worker termites find plant debris ...
Drywood termites have an adaptive mechanism for conserving water. Undigested matter in the alimentary canal passes through specialized rectal glands in the hindgut. These glands reabsorb water from the feces. They can tolerate dry conditions for long periods of time, receiving all of the moisture they need from the wood they live in and consume.
Zootermopsis angusticollis is a species of termite in the family Archotermopsidae, a group known as the Pacific dampwood termites, or the rottenwood termites. [1] As their name suggests, the dampwood termites can only survive by living off of wood that contains high amounts of moisture.
Microhodotermes viator, commonly called the southern harvester termite, [2] the Karoo harvesting termite, [3] the wood-eating harvester termite, [4] houtkapper (lit. ' wood cutter '), and stokkiesdraer (lit. ' stick carrier '), [5] is a species of harvester termite native to the desert shrubland of Namibia and South Africa.
When it enters buildings, which it can do through a minute crack in concrete, it prefers to feed on wood that grew in spring rather than summer growth, which has a higher lignin content; the attacked timbers have a honeycomb-like appearance with soil in the galleries. [1] The termites can create free-standing tubes descending from the ceiling. [1]