Termite Symbionts

Although termites are insects that eat wood termites are not capable of digesting wood on their own. Previously only the evolutionary process of completely extracellular or intracellular symbionts were studied but the transition between those stages remained a mystery. Without them the host will die without the termite they die.

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Thus termites provide us a great model to study the evolutionary process of cellular symbiosis.

Termite symbionts. Termite gut symbionts by wim van egmond three hypermastigotes trichonympha sp and a trichomonas sp. If you remove the gut from a termite and puncture it you will find the gut is crammed with the weirdest looking protists. Termites harbor complex gut microbiota which comprises unicellular eukaryotes bacteria and archaea. Termites rely upon a regime of symbiotic gut protists and prokaryote bacteria to digest the wood.

For at least 250 million years the symbionts within the termite gut have evolved along with their termite hosts. Residing within the hindguts of a termite are millions of endosymbionts that are essential to the termite s life. All termites eat wood yet cannot digest it. Endosymbionts are organisms that live within the body or cell of another organism.

Top left in the midst of a living soup of other small protists and partly decayed wood. The majority of the symbiotic flagellates in termite guts are characterized by both their cellulolytic activity and an abundance of prokaryotic symbionts within and or attached to the outsides of their cell bodies.