Bark beetles and their associated Ophiostomatiod fungi are the major pests of pine forests in the southeastern USA, and termites are the major insect decomposers of dead trees and wood products in the southeastern USA. While both are the principal destructive insects of southern pine trees and southern pine lumber, respectively, no relationship between the two has apparently been reported in the literature. While recently inspecting bark beetle-killed southern pine trees, we noticed that subterranean termites were often present in the lower trunk of pines with incipient bark beetle infestations and always present in trees that had been dead for several months. This unusually rapid termite infestation suggested a possible attraction of termites to beetle-killed wood. AWPA E1 choice termite tests with three colonies of the subterranean termite Reticulitermes flavipes (Kollar) always showed a significant feeding preference for both air-dried and kiln-dried blue-stained southern pine sapwood compared to unstained southern pine sapwood. These initial results indicate that subterranean termites play a significant role in the ecosystem of southern pine forests and carbon recycling, and termite attack on southern pine lumber cut from beetle-killed trees may be associated with the death of the host tree. As the implications of these results may be of major importance to forest health, ecology, and utilization of wood products from the southern pines, we are conducting additional laboratory and field studies.

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