0000000000113890
AUTHOR
Jacques Pasteels
Pheromones and Chemical Ecology of Dispersal and Foraging in Termites
Pheromones play a crucial role in the ecology of dispersal and foraging in termites. Sex-pairing pheromones possess a double role of long-range attraction to unite sexual partners and a short-range or contact attraction to maintain the pair during the tandem behaviour. Sex-pairing pheromones most often comprise a single compound capable of eliciting both behavioural effects. They appear very conservative in their evolution, and their role in the reproductive isolation of sympatric species greatly varies according to species. Species-specific sex-pairing pheromones consist of different major compounds or of a common major compound with species-specific minor components. Foraging is a collect…
Caste-dependent reactions to soldier defensive secretion and chiral alarm/recruitment pheromone inNasutitermes princeps
The soldier frontal gland secretion ofNasutitermes princeps induces strong short-range caste-specific alarm and attraction in both soldiers and workers. Soldiers are excited and patrol the surroundings of the source. The secretion per se does not induce ejection of additional secretion. Large workers of the second stage or older are massively attracted when tested in homogeneous groups. They focus their activities much more accurately than the soldiers around the source. The workers' reaction is less intense in the presence of soldiers. Large and small workers of stage 1 scarcely react at all to the secretion, whether tested in homogeneous or mixed groups. These results suggest the followin…
(+)-α-Pinene in the defensive secretion ofNasutitermes princeps (Isoptera, Termitidae)
The frontal secretion ofNasutitermes princeps consists of 89% diterpenes and 11% monoterpenes. In the samples studied, (+)-α-pinene, whose optical purity reaches 99.5%, accounts for more than 80% of the monoterpenic content.