Species Attract and Antagonize Termite Pathogen .

Although subterranean termites live within soil, little attention has been paid on the potential interaction among subterranean termites and soil microbes. Herein, we conducted different choice tests to investigate aggregation and tunneling behaviors of Shiraki responding to soil/sand treated with conidia of seven soil fungi, Rifai, Oud., (Bon.) Bain., Karsten, Indira and Kamala, Rifai, and Pers. ex Fries. In aggregation-choice test, soil treated with nearly all species tested (except ) significantly increased termite aggregation compared with untreated soil. In tunneling-choice tests, termites produced significantly larger tunnels in sand treated with or than that in untreated sand. We hypothesized that species could benefit termites by protecting them from infection of the entomopathogenic fungus (Metschn) Sorokin, and three species that attracted termites (, , and ) were tested. The antagonism tests showed that the three species suppressed growth of Also, the median lethal time (LT) of termites exposed to both species and was significantly longer than termites exposed to alone. Interestingly, though significantly fewer termites aggregated in soil treated with conidia compared with untreated soil, conidia mixed with or were no longer repellent to termites. Our results showed that the fungi in the genus (1) exerted generally attractive effects on termites, (2) protected termites from the infection of entomopathogenic fungus, and (3) altered pathogen-avoiding behaviors of termites. Future studies will be required to understand the mechanisms underlying these newly discovered effects.