According to new studies, termites devour deadwood significantly faster under warmer circumstances.
Wood-eating termites perform a diverse and significant function in tropical and subtropical environments. They recycle important nutrients from the soil and release carbon back into the environment by feeding on wood.
The study, which was published in Science, quantified for the first time how much termites enjoy warmth.
Termites devour deadwood significantly faster in warmer temperatures, according to scientists. Termites, for example, will eat wood seven times faster in a region with temperatures of 30°C than in a region with temps of 20°C.
The findings also suggest that termites will play a larger role in the decades to come as a result of the planet's changing climate. And as a result, more carbon that has been stored in deadwood may be released into the sky.
In general, scientists are aware of the circumstances that encourage microorganisms to consume deadwood. Each 10°C rise in temperature normally results in a doubling of their activity. Deadwood often decomposes more quickly in wet environments because to microbial growth.
On the other hand, nothing was known about the global distribution of termites that consume dead wood or how this distribution would change in response to local variations in temperature and moisture content.
To better understand this, the researchers first created and tested a procedure for quantifying termite consumption rates of deadwood in a savannah and a rainforest ecosystem in northeast Queensland.
They discovered a substantially steeper link between decay rates and temperature, with deadwood decaying nearly seven times quicker at 10°C hotter areas.
Termite consumption of wood blocks was also shown to be highest in warm areas with low to intermediate mean annual rainfall.
Termite degradation, for example, occurred five times faster in South Africa's subtropical desert than in Puerto Rico's tropical jungle.
This may be true because termites can reach water deep in the soil from the safety of their mounds during dry periods, whereas waterlogging may restrict their capacity to scavenge for deadwood.
To forecast how termite consumption of deadwood would change globally in response to climate change, the team's findings were combined into a model.
We anticipate increased termite activity in the next decades because climate change forecasts indicate that suitable termite habitat will spread both north and south of the equator.
This means that carbon cycling through the deadwood pool will become faster, returning carbon dioxide stored by trees to the atmosphere, potentially limiting carbon storage in these ecosystems.
Reduced carbon storage on land might then trigger a feedback loop that accelerates the rate of climate change.
