Jeff G. Whitman and Brian T. Forschler. Entomology, University of Georgia, 413 Bioscience, UGA, 120 Cedar Street, Athens, GA 30602-2603
Groups of Reticulitermes flavipes (Kollar) were placed in an enclosed, darkened arena and videotaped for three 24-h periods. Treatments consisted of laboratory cultured colonies and equally sized, randomly selected groups of field-collected worker termites. Specific individuals were scored for six behaviors over 12 15-min periods for a total of 3-h per full day of video-tape. The frequency of all behaviors was higher for the randomly selected versus the laboratory cultured treatments. All behaviors, with the exception of excavation, were performed by all individuals that were scored. This suggests that there may be some degree of task allocation in the lower termites. Time spent on all behaviors was highly variable, providing no statistical differences between treatments. The mean percent times spent on the scored behaviors scored 73.3±27.1% performing no discernable activity, 6.6±13.3% allogrooming, 6.4±15.0% chewing cellulose, 4.1±12.2% chewing material from proctodeal trophallaxis, 3.7±12.4% chewing material from stomodeal trophallaxis, and 2.7±9.8% manipulating substrate. The shortest scoring intervals that accurately represented termite worker activity levels contained at least 20 regularly spaced minutes per 4 hours of video tape.
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