Duarte Sónia, Nobre Tânia, Borges Paulo A V, Nunes Lina
Structures Department LNEC Lisbon Portugal.
Faculty of Agrarian and Environmental Sciences cE3c - Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes/Azorean Biodiversity Group University of the Azores Azores Portugal.
Ecol Evol. 2018 May 10;8(11):5242-5253. doi: 10.1002/ece3.3819. eCollection 2018 Jun.
Changes in flagellate protist communities of subterranean termite across different locations were evaluated following four predictions: (i) Rural endemic (Portugal mainland) termite populations will exhibit high diversity of symbionts; (ii) invasive urban populations (Horta city, Faial island, Azores), on the contrary, will exhibit lower diversity of symbionts, showing high similarity of symbiont assemblages through environmental filtering; (iii) recent historical colonization of isolated regions-as the case of islands-will imply a loss of symbiont diversity; and (iv) island isolation will trigger a change in colony breeding structure toward a less aggressive behavior. Symbiont flagellate protist communities were morphologically identified, and species richness and relative abundances, as well as biodiversity indices, were used to compare symbiotic communities in colonies from urban and rural environments and between island invasive and mainland endemic populations. To evaluate prediction on the impact of isolation (iv), aggression tests were performed among termites comprising island invasive and mainland endemic populations. A core group of flagellates and secondary facultative symbionts was identified. Termites from rural environments showed, in the majority of observed colonies, more diverse and abundant protist communities, probably confirming prediction (i). Corroborating prediction (ii), the two least diverse communities belong to termites captured inside urban areas. The Azorean invasive termite colonies had more diverse protist communities than expected and prediction (iii) which was not verified within this study. Termites from mainland populations showed a high level of aggressiveness between neighboring colonies, in contrast to the invasive colonies from Horta city, which were not aggressive to neighbors according to prediction (iv). The symbiotic flagellate community of showed the ability to change in a way that might be consistent with adaptation to available conditions, possibly contributing to optimization of the colonization of new habitats and spreading of its distribution area, highlighting potential as an invasive species.
根据以下四个预测，评估了不同地点地下白蚁鞭毛虫原生生物群落的变化：（i）农村地方性（葡萄牙大陆）白蚁种群将表现出共生体的高度多样性；（ii）相反，入侵性城市种群（亚速尔群岛法亚尔岛奥尔塔市）的共生体多样性将较低，通过环境过滤显示出共生体组合的高度相似性；（iii）岛屿等孤立地区的近期历史殖民化将意味着共生体多样性的丧失；（iv）岛屿隔离将引发蚁群繁殖结构向攻击性较弱行为的转变。通过形态学方法鉴定了共生鞭毛虫原生生物群落，并使用物种丰富度、相对丰度以及生物多样性指数来比较城市和农村环境中蚁群的共生群落，以及岛屿入侵种群和大陆地方性种群之间的共生群落。为了评估关于隔离影响的预测（iv），对包含岛屿入侵种群和大陆地方性种群的白蚁进行了攻击性测试。确定了一组核心鞭毛虫和次生兼性共生体。在大多数观察到的蚁群中，来自农村环境的白蚁显示出更多样化和丰富的原生生物群落，这可能证实了预测（i）。证实预测（ii）的是，两个多样性最低的群落属于在城市地区捕获的白蚁。亚速尔群岛入侵性白蚁群落的原生生物群落比预期的更多样化，而预测（iii）在本研究中未得到验证。与来自奥尔塔市的入侵性蚁群不同，大陆种群的白蚁在相邻蚁群之间表现出高度的攻击性，根据预测（iv），奥尔塔市的入侵性蚁群对邻居没有攻击性。 的共生鞭毛虫群落显示出能够以可能与适应现有条件相一致的方式发生变化，这可能有助于优化新栖息地的定殖及其分布区域的扩展，突出了其作为入侵物种的潜力。
