Category: Uncategorized

COLONY LIFESPANS. “A colony usually starts with a single mated pair (sometimes multiple pairs) and the small nuptial chamber they dig once alates have paired off and begin to reproduce. As the population of workers grows, so too does the mound, reaching a steady height at the same time the population of workers stabilizes at 1–2 million. This commonly takes 4–5 years. The mound will last as long as the queen’s lifespan, which is estimated to be 15–20 years, but the lifespan of the workers that actually build and maintain the mound is considerably shorter, on the order of a few months.” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12304-016-9256-5 View in LinkedIn

COLONY MEMORY THROUGH GENERATIONS. “The colony’s impressive longevity and the overlap and staggering of generations of workers within means that interpretation of the mound structure by termite workers can both be immediate as well as being transmitted across generations of workers as a form of memory.” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12304-016-9256-5 View in LinkedIn

INTERPRETATIVE RESPONSE. “This upward flux of soil helps maintain the mound in the face of erosion from wind and rain. The structure of the mound is thus a balance between two opposing fluxes of soil: erosion-mediated loss, offset by termite-mediated deposition. The mound’s structure changes if the rate and pattern of either soil flux changes. Semiotic issues arise because the movement of soil by termites is neither random nor automatic, but is mediated by a host of signs that the workers must interpret, both individually and en masse as a swarm. This is a key aspect of the mound’s adaptability: the pattern of deposition is, to an extent, a reflection of how the workers interpret the structure they build.” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12304-016-9256-5 View in LinkedIn

SIGNIFICANT EARTHWORKS. “The mound is built by termites depositing soil on the mound’s surface, brought up from deep soil horizons and gradually transported up through the nest. The amounts of soil so moved are impressive, amounting to roughly 250 kg per year, nearly all of it during the rainy season.” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12304-016-9256-5 View in LinkedIn

FINER PHYSIOLOGY. “We now know this to be incorrect. The colony’s respiratory gas exchange is not mediated through bulk flows of air through the nest, but through a complex mixed-regime process that is very similar to how gas exchange operates in our own lungs. This involves using wind energy to promote mixing at a boundary between two air masses that, for various reasons, are poorly mixed: the mound’s and the nest’s.” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12304-016-9256-5 View in LinkedIn