Interloper, architect, chomper, recycler!

A mysterious creature with Jurassic era origins dwells in Navilu Kaadu’s subterranean realm. Come monsoon, the creature and its kin grow wings and emerge from their underground abode, thronging the light bulb in the porch and littering the yard with gossamer wings. We humans view this creature as an interloper, puncturing and pulverising wooden structures in our homes. In nature, this being is a prolific decomposer and pivotal nutrient recycler that has been keeping the wheel of the planet’s carbon cycle turning for aeons.

Termites constitute the infraorder Isoptera and belong to a branch of the cockroach family tree, folding under Blattodea, an order made up of cockroaches and termites. Recent studies suggest termites evolved in the late Jurassic era, between 163 to 145 million years ago, a period when colossal dinosaurs roamed the earth.

These eusocial insects live in highly organised colonies with millions of inhabitants, and a distinct division of reproductive and non-reproductive roles. This makes termites, wood-chomping roaches that like company!

Since prehistoric times, termites have been sustaining vast swathes of woodland and grassland ecosystems in arid and semi-arid landscapes in the tropics, breaking down lignocellulose in dying and dead vegetation into rich soil nutrients, with help from the bacteria and protozoa in their guts.

They are hemimetabolous insects and undergo partial metamorphosis, skipping the pupal stage entirely, much like the dragonfly that featured in this column earlier. Like the dragonfly nymphs, the young of termites also go through several moults.

Other than the fecund queen and the king, all workers in a termite colony are immature nymphs in different developmental stages and are pale and larva-like. The soldier class makes up a small part of the nest population, defending the nest from potential predators.

Some of the nymphs attain sexual maturity when it is time to swarm or leave the colony of their birth to establish new colonies. They grow wings, turning into reproductive alates.

Monsoon rains have a major bearing on the love life of termites as the showers induce conditions conducive for termite procreation. These soft-bodied insects with thin exoskeletons need humidity, lest their delicate bodies lose moisture during the nuptial flight, the only time they will ever be airborne. The nuptial flight is the Tinder and Bumble-equivalent in termite land, when winged alates swarm to find lasting love. When swarming, the alates form monogamous reproductive pairs that go on to establish new colonies.

Once paired, they dealate, or lose their wings, dig cosy love nests in damp soil, seal the chamber and mate. The female initially lays around a dozen eggs, and the pair raises their first-borns, who go on to become the colony’s first generation of workers — foragers, nest builders and nannies for their many siblings born thereafter.

The queen of an older, established colony is an egg-popping engine and lays over a thousand eggs every single day. The king fertilises her periodically. Reproductive termites have long life spans stretching to decades.   

Termites construct thriving termite metropolises from a bio-cement of mud and water with infusions of saliva for weather-proofing. Termite nests are nature’s engineering marvels with tunnels and compartments that regulate humidity and temperature, insulating the interiors from seasonal climatic changes.

While most invertebrate detritophages and decomposers cease to function in harsh climatic conditions and during certain seasons, termites relentlessly polish off detritus, making them all-season and all-weather nutrient recyclers. Their climate-controlled living quarters keep them active and functioning all year round, which makes termites super decomposers.

Termites are incredible ecosystem engineers too, enriching soil, enhancing soil porosity and rainwater percolation.

Plenty of insects, mammals and birds get their energy fix from consuming protein-rich termites. High up in the expansive skies of the eastern Himalayas, scientists found that a million journeying Amur Falcons (Falco amurensis), the world’s longest-flying raptors, feast on a staggering two billion alates in a span of a fortnight during their Himalayan layover, in preparation for the birds’ non-stop 3,500 km flight over the Arabian Sea to east and southern Africa.  (Kaur, A. et al. J. Raptor Res. 2024)

While termites bear a bad rap as pests, without the 2800-odd termite species on the planet, the nutrients in any ecosystem would remain unavailable and perennially trapped in dead plant matter.

Rooting for Nature is a monthly column on an off-kilter urban family’s trysts with nature on a natural farm. The author runs Green Goobé, a sustainable venture committed to a greener, cleaner planet. Reach her at [e-mail]