Population density of subterranean termites (Isoptera : Rhinotermitidae) on tunnel formation in laboratory arenas

摘要

The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of population densities of two subterranean termite species, Reticulitermes flavipes (Kollar) and Coptotermes formosanus Shiraki on the length and speed of tunnel construction and on fractal dimension parameters. Plexiglas arenas of 105 x 105cm(2) were used to study the daily tunnel construction of these termites. Numbers of termites used were 250, 500, 1,000, or 2,000 workers for both species. Termite density had no significant effect on the fractal dimension, D, for these experiments. This indicated that the overall complexity of tunnels was not affected by population density of termites for either species, and that the primary tunnels at all densities for both species were more or less a straight line. The abundance of tunnels, log K, was higher, and the speed of tunnel construction was faster, in those arenas with 1,000 to 2,000 termites per arena than those with 250-500 termites, but was not influenced by termite species. Of the two termite species, we found that R. flavipes built the longest tunnels in the same allotted time.