Journal article
White-gutted soldiers: simplification of the digestive tube for a non-particulate diet in higher Old World termites (Isoptera: Termitidae)
- Abstract:
- Previous observations have noted that in some species of higher termites the soldier caste lacks pigmented particles in its gut and, instead, is fed worker saliva that imparts a whitish coloration to the abdomen. In order to investigate the occurrence of this trait more thoroughly, we surveyed a broad diversity of termite specimens and taxonomic descriptions from the Old World subfamilies Apicotermitinae, Cubitermitinae, Foraminitermitinae, Macrotermitinae, and Termitinae. We identified 38 genera that have this "white-gutted" soldier (WGS) trait. No termite soldiers from the New World were found to possess a WGS caste. Externally, the WGS is characterized by a uniformly pale abdomen, hyaline gut, and proportionally smaller body-to-head volume ratio compared with their "dark-gutted" soldier (DGS) counterparts found in most termitid genera. The WGS is a fully formed soldier that, unlike soldiers in other higher termite taxa, has a small, narrow, and decompartmentalized digestive tube that lacks particulate food contents. The presumed saliva-nourished WGS have various forms of simplified gut morphologies that have evolved at least six times within the higher termites.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Supplementary materials, zip, 11.4MB, Terms of use)
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 4.5MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1007/s00040-017-0572-9
Authors
+ European Research Council
More from this funder
- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/0472cxd90
- Grant:
- 283959
- Publisher:
- Springer
- Journal:
- Insectes Sociaux More from this journal
- Volume:
- 64
- Issue:
- 4
- Pages:
- 525-533
- Place of publication:
- France
- Publication date:
- 2017-07-12
- Acceptance date:
- 2017-06-30
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1420-9098
- ISSN:
-
0020-1812
- Pmid:
-
29081537
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
-
1646458
- Local pid:
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pubs:1646458
- Deposit date:
-
2025-04-25
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Scheffrahn et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2017
- Rights statement:
- The Author(s) 2017. Open Access. This article is an open access publication distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made..
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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