Tunnel optimization following food discovery in the Formosan subterranean termite

Tuesday, November 15, 2022

3:54 PM – 4:06 PM PT

Location: Vancouver Convention Centre, Meeting Room 214

Presenting Author(s)

SL

Sang-Bin Lee

Post-doc
University of Florida
Davie, Florida

Co-Author(s)

ZM

Zion Michael

Florida International University
Miami, Florida
Thomas P. Chouvenc

Assistant Professor
University of Florida
Davie, Florida
NS

Nan-Yao Su

Distinguished Professor
University of Florida
Davie, Florida

Building an optimized foraging network is an important element for minimizing costs and maximizing benefits in transfer of resources among social animals. Subterranean termites excavate complex underground tunnel networks to optimize chances of food discovery. However, termites have no prior information of food location during the food searching phase, and the resulting tunnels may inherently not be optimized for food transportation. We here suggest that, once a wood piece is discovered through underground excavation, termites may be able to optimize traveling time by further altering tunnel topography. To do so, we investigated tunnel optimization process using colonies of Coptotermes formosanus Shiraki. Different shapes and distances of pre-formed tunnels (simple, intermediate, and complex arenas) to food were provided in planar arenas and we observed tunnel excavations for 24 hours. Termites in the simple arena (shortest possible distance) continuously used the pre-formed tunnel with negligible branching activities. However, termites in the intermediate (medium detour) and complex arenas (long detour) followed the pre-formed tunnel only for the initial few hours before excavating many branching tunnels. This branching activity in the intermediate and complex arenas ultimately resulted in termites finding shorter commuting routes than the pre-formed tunnels, and this was done via dead reckoning In addition, the newly established shortest route was widened over time with increase of use by termite. The current study demonstrated that once food is discovered, the shortest route to the food source can be collectively obtained from additional tunnel branching and increasing tunnel width over time.