Comparative study of termite diversity in moist evergreen forest and dry evergreen forest, Chanthaburi province, Thailand

IRG/WP 03-10480

S Chutibhapakorn

Sixty out of one hundred plots of two forest types (moist evergreen forest (MEF) and dry evergreen forest (DEF)) in Chanthaburi Province, eastern Thailand, were randomly surveyed for the presence of termites from all possible habitats. Three hundred and forty-five samples were collected from December 1999 – April 2000. Morphological identification of the 345 samples gave results for 3 families, 8 subfamilies, 20 genera and 42 species, of which 37 species of 19 genera were recorded from MEF and 27 species of 15 genera from DEF respectively. One undetermined species of the genus Angulitermes was recorded, which represents a new addition to the termite list of Thailand. Microcerotermes crassus Snyder, classified as a wood feeder, was found to be the dominant species in MEF and DEF, while Globitermes sulphureus (Haviland) was the second most dominant species. Ancistrotermes pakestanicus (Silverstri, 1912) a fungus growing termite, was another dominant species in MEF. In the cool-dry season, MEF showed an H’-index value of 2.415 and in the hot-dry season an H’-index value of 2.284. The H’-index values of DEF in the cool-dry and the hot-dry seasons were 2.121 and 1.67 respectively. Identification of specimens from a different survey revealed that seasonal changes did not greatly affect termite species richness in all study sites. Species diversity and species richness or termite activity tend to be lower in the hot-dry season (April).


Keywords: Termite diversity, moist evergreen forest, dry evergreen forest

Conference: 03-05-18/23 Brisbane, Australia


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