Need for shared internal mound conditions by fungus-growing Macrotermes does not predict their species distributions, in current or future climates

Seymour, Colleen L.; Korb, Judith; Joseph, Grant S.; Hassall, Richard ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4489-8831; Coetzee, Bernard W.T.. 2023 Need for shared internal mound conditions by fungus-growing Macrotermes does not predict their species distributions, in current or future climates. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 378 (1884), 20220152. 12, pp. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0152

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Abstract/Summary

The large, iconic nests constructed by social species are engineered to create internal conditions buffered from external climatic extremes, to allow reproduction and/or food production. Nest-inhabiting eusocial Macrotermitinae (Blattodea: Isoptera) are outstanding palaeo-tropical ecosystem engineers that evolved fungus-growing to break down plant matter ca 62 Mya; the termites feed on the fungus and plant matter. Fungus-growing ensures a constant food supply, but the fungi need temperature-buffered, high humidity conditions, created in architecturally complex, often tall, nest-structures (mounds). Given the need for constant and similar internal nest conditions by fungi farmed by different Macrotermes species, we assessed whether current distributions of six African Macrotermes correlate with similar variables, and whether this would reflect in expected species' distribution shifts with climate change. The primary variables explaining species’ distributions were not the same for the different species. Distributionally, three of the six species are predicted to see declines in highly suitable climate. For two species, range increases should be small (less than 9%), and for a single species, M. vitrialatus, ‘very suitable’ climate could increase by 64%. Mismatches in vegetation requirements and anthropogenic habitat transformation may preclude range expansion, however, presaging disruption to ecosystem patterns and processes that will cascade through systems at both landscape and continental scales.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0152
UKCEH and CEH Sections/Science Areas:	Biodiversity (Science Area 2017-)
ISSN:	0962-8436
Additional Keywords:	African termites, climate change projections, Termitomyces fungus-culturing, fungus farming, species distribution models, obligate symbiotic relationship limits on species
NORA Subject Terms:	Ecology and Environment
Date made live:	09 Nov 2023 09:55 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/535754

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