Regulation of foraging areas and structuring of termite communities / Regulação de areas de forrageamento e estruturação de comunidades de cupins

AUTOR(ES)

Ana Paula Albano Araújo

DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2009

RESUMO

The use of habitats by animals depends on the balance of costs and bene ts associated to foraging, like availability of resources and negative interactions. Termites (Insecta: Isoptera) are detritivorous organisms with great economic and ecological importance. However, the mechanisms that structure their communities are not completely known. So, the objective of this thesis was to study the factors that lead to the variation of termite foraging areas and how they can interfere in their community structure. The central question of this work was: Why is there variation in termite abundance and richness? To answer this question, the following hypotheses were tested: i) the abundance and richness of species are greater in sites with higher resource availability; ii) termites reduce their foraging areas as resource availability increases; iii) the overlapping peaks of the termite foraging areas occur in the extreme points of the habitat quality (low and high); and iv) bottom-up and top-down factors delay resource decomposition by termites because they prefer resources in high quality and quantity and avoid resources that offer predation risks. Results show a reduction of termite abundance and richness in places with abundance of resources. However, as it was expected, termites reduced the size of their foraging areas in high quality patches. Our results corroborate the hypothesis that there is more overlap of foraging areas in the extremes of the habitat quality. We also see that both bottom-up and top-down factors delay the use of resources by termites. They selected resources in high quantity and without predation risk. Concluding, termites select their foraging areas and present a behavioral exibility that allows them to regulate the size of their foraging areas according to the environmental conditions. This exibility can explain the seemingly contradictory termite patterns of richness. This work can contribute for the understanding of termite foraging and community structure.

ASSUNTO(S)

risco de predação use of resources ecologia de ecossistemas isoptera forrageamento utilização de recursos isoptera predation risks foraging

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