Excavation and Architectures of Odontotermes formosanus Shiraki Nests

Abstract

Odontotermes formosanus Shiraki is one of the most destructive pests for forest, agriculture crops and even dams and boats in south parts of china. The species is endemic to south, west, and south east of China, and other countries such as Myanmar, and Vietnam. The name Formosanus has given to these kinds of termites traced back to Formosa in Taiwan that first found and classified. Because the eggs need a temperature above 20 to be hatched, they only live in tropical and sub-tropical regions. In this paper we first given a method to dig the nest of O. formosanus Shiraki and then studied the architecture of O. formosanus Shiraki nest based on the soil layers. We found the soil compositions have a key relation with architecture and depth of the nests. The thicker top soil becomes the more eagerness for queen and king to build their nest deeper. In fact the main fungal garden with queen and king is placed on the subsoil where the soil is more stable with higher amount of clay in it.