A Faunistic Survey and Morphometric Analysis of Termite Species from Jorhat and Golaghat Districts of Assam, India
Himangshu Mishra
Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Cachar, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat-785013, India.
Badal Bhattacharyya *
Department of Entomology, College of Agriculture, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat-785013, Assam, India.
Sudhansu Bhagawati
Department of Entomology, College of Agriculture, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat-785013, Assam, India.
Shimantini Borkataki
Department of Entomology, College of Agriculture, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat-785013, Assam, India.
Dhanalakhi Gogoi
Department of Sericulture, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat-785013, Assam, India.
Snigdha Bhattacharjee
AAU- Sugarcane, Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Research Station, Assam Agricultural University, Buralikson -785622, Assam, India.
E Bidyarani Devi
School of Agriculture & Allied Sciences, Girijananda Chowdhury University, Tezpur- 784001, Assam, India.
Ratan Baruah
Department of Physics, Tezpur University, Sonitpur-784028, Assam, India.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
To understand the incidence of different termite species in four different habitats (forest, agriculture, rural and urban sites), a systematic GPS based study was carried out during 2020-2021 and 2021-22 in two selected districts of Assam. The study revealed the presence of different termite species across diverse habitats in both districts. Among these 8 species, five species belonged to the Macrotermitinae subfamily, whereas the remaining 3 species belonged to Nasutitermitinae, Kalotermitinae and Amitermitinae subfamilies. The genus Odontotermes was found to be predominant, comprising four species viz., Odontotermes obesus (Rambur), O. feae (Wasmann), O. parvidens (Holmg. and Holmg.) and O. kapuri (Roonwal and Chhotani). The other 4 species belonged to different genera and these were Microtermes mycophagous (Desneux), Trinervitermes biformis (Wasmann), Neotermes buxensis (Roonwal and Sen-sarma) and Speculitermes chadaensis (Chatterjee and Thapa). Four different feeding groups of termites were observed among which soil, litter and fungus feeder were dominantly found. Among eight species, O. obesus and O. feae were dominantly distributed in different habitats of both the district. Morphometric studies indicated that O. feae was larger than rest of the seven species.
Keywords: Termite species, incidence, habitats and feeding group