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Mechanisms of Individual and Collective Behaviour in Neotropical Termite Species

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2022

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How do animals decide about when and where to go? What triggers a specific type of collective motion or lead organisms to move in a particular way? If we are to provide answers to such questions, we first need to understand and characterise the baseline behaviour of individuals. Behavioural estimation, however, can be difficult when field observation is challenging and replication of natural behaviour in laboratory is limited. When working with colonial organisms in laboratory, for instance, vertical walls of more traditional experimental arenas can disrupt free movement of individuals and prevent the detection of collective patterns. In the first chapter of this thesis, to overcome this limitation, I developed an experimental protocol to observe whole colonies of termites under controlled laboratory conditions. In addition to providing details about experimental procedures and discussing factors of relevance when conducting behavioural experiments, this study (in preparation for submission) shows results of movement patterns that corroborate to validate the method as a sufficiently practical tool. For being inexpensive and of easy setup, this approach should allow behavioural observation and recording of thousands of markerless termites, making possible the investigation of several group behaviours and collective patterns of knowledge currently incipient. In the second chapter, I focused on collective motion and investigated how discrete movements of individuals can give rise to emergent patterns at the group-level. Collective behavior has been the subject of a broad general interest for nearly two decades now, yet studies looking at the mechanistic components of coordinated movement in termites are rare. Using the protocol developed in the first chapter, I conducted experiments with whole colonies of the termite Constrictotermes cyphergaster to specifically investigate how the structure of groups - characterised by group size and group composition - affects the emergence of coordinated collective motion in termites. This study shows that both group size and group composition influence coordinated collective motion of termites. The third chapter consists of a piece of natural history, in which I described a new potter wasp species from the Brazilian Cerrado, Montezumia termitophila sp. nov. (Hymenoptera: Vespidae: Eumeninae). This chapter has been published in Ecology and Evolution and provides the very first evidence of association between active colonies of termites and potter wasps. In addition, this work proposes a life cycle for the new wasp species, based on the documentation we reported. This publication highlights the importance of natural history in Biology and reinforces the view of termite societies as an ideal biological system to investigate fundamental questions about animal behaviour. Finally, in the fourth chapter, I shift the focus towards the consequences of evolved morphological traits in the behaviour of eusocial individuals. In termites, caste dimorphism stems not only from behavioural traits and social interactions but also from morphological differences exhibited by individuals, which enables a group of colonial members – namely, a caste - to perform distinct intrinsic colony tasks. Inspired by theoretical concepts of movement ecology and using an interdisciplinary approach, I measured the movement behaviour of Syntermes molestus (Burmeister, 1934), a termite known for its accentuated caste dimorphism, in which soldiers are not only larger than workers but also morphologically different. This study, in preparation for submission, demonstrates that, as opposed to a single algorithm of motion operating in both worker and soldier castes, the set of morphological differences exhibited by soldiers allow them to move differently, in a way that reflects their evolutionarily adaptive traits. In this thesis, although establishing connections with ecological and evolutionary aspects of termite’s natural history, I focused primarily on behavioural ecology, looking at the mechanisms behind individual and collective patterns. While the findings I present here fill some of many gaps of termite behavioural ecology, they also raise several interesting questions about the causes and consequences of behavioral mechanisms of socially complex societies. After working with termites for many years, my understanding is that behaviour, performed either individually or collectively, has a pivotal role in the impressive evolutionary success of eusocial systems. With recent technological advances in the field of animal behavior, it is exciting that empirical approaches to simultaneously assess the behaviour of thousands of individuals with accuracy - until recently impossible - are now within our grasp.

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570 Biowissenschaften, Biologie

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Collective behaviour, Movement ecology, Termites, Ecology, Evolution

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ISO 690DOS SANTOS, Helder Hugo, 2022. Mechanisms of Individual and Collective Behaviour in Neotropical Termite Species [Dissertation]. Konstanz: University of Konstanz
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@phdthesis{DosSantos2022Mecha-66060,
  year={2022},
  title={Mechanisms of Individual and Collective Behaviour in Neotropical Termite Species},
  author={Dos Santos, Helder Hugo},
  address={Konstanz},
  school={Universität Konstanz}
}
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Prüfungsdatum der Dissertation

May 30, 2022
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Konstanz, Univ., Diss., 2022
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