Why Microbiologists Study Termites
Although termites are famous for their ability to eat wood, causing damage to wooden structures and
recycling cellulose in the soil, they are unable to digest the wood that they
eat to break down the cellulose, termites enlist the help of microbes Some
termites, for example, dig tunnels in the wood, then inoculate the tunnels with
fungi that grow on the wood.
These termites then eat the fungi.
not the wood itself. What microbiologists find more interesting are the
termites that contain within their digestive tracts, symbiotic microorganisms that
digest the cellulose that the termites chew and swallow.
Even more fascinating to
microbiologists is the fact that these microorganisms themselves can survive
only because of even smaller symbionts that live on and within them, without
which they would not even be able to move.
By studying how a single termite
survives, microbiologists have begun to gain an entirely new understanding of
symbiosis,
The termite's dependence on nitrogen
fixing bacteria to supply its nitrogen and on protozoans such as Trichonympha sphaeflca to digest cellulose is an example
of endosymbiosis, a symbiotic rela tionship with an organism that lives inside
the body of the host organism (in this case, within the hindgut of the
termite).
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