Close up of a termite worker’s head. Image from the USGS Native Bee Inventory and Monitoring Laboratory from Beltsville, USA. public domain.
A new study finds that climate change will lead to an increase in termite activity (the process of tropization, in which global warming shifts certain regions toward tropical climates). Not only will this cause a direct problem stemming from the damage termites cause (especially to wood), there is also an indirect effect that will exacerbate the climate problem: the release of more carbon dioxide.
Termite colonies range in size from a few hundred individuals to huge communities of several million individuals. This means that any change in conditions that favor termites — hot and dry conditions — will result in a significant increase in numbers.
This effect occurs because termites could reduce the amount of carbon stored in wood as the world gets hotter and drier, the Natural History Museum in London reports. In particular, the release of carbon dioxide from the release of deadwood is expected to increase worldwide.
Termites have a variety of food sources, although wood-eating termites are the most common due to their ability to break down cellulose.
The example of climate change causing an increase in termite numbers and more termites causing more climate change by releasing carbon dioxide is an example of a “climate feedback loop”. Feedback loops of this type are complex in their own right, and even more so when viewed as part of an integrated global climate system.
The example of termites and the contribution to climate change refers to a study published in the journal Science. Here, research found that the wood-breaking activity of termites increases nearly sevenfold for every 10 degrees Celsius warming of the earth.
Using data from 133 sites on six continents, the researchers found that termite wood discovery and consumption was highly temperature sensitive. The need for a large global range reflects the distribution of termites around the world (although a third of the world’s termite species live in Africa).
It has long been thought that termites are an important decomposer in the tropics and are associated with heat-dependent wood decomposition and associated climate impacts; however, they have been less well studied to date.
The most likely affected regions of the world were identified by the researchers as follows: tropical seasonal forests, tropical savannas and subtropical deserts. In the future, it will be more important to understand how termites will behave in the Anthropocene.
The research paper is titled “Temperature sensitivity of termites influences global wood decay rates”. The research was led by scientists from the Department of Biology at the University of Miami, USA
