Radiation in termites: the importance of recognition cues

辐射白蚁属知之甚少。与白蚁形态上的一致性相反，白蚁使用相当多样的化学物质与巢友、竞争者或捕食者相互作用。特别是表皮碳氢化合物被假定在物种和巢识别中起关键作用。碳氢化合物在物种内部和物种之间表现出相当大的差异，因此可能在物种形成过程中发挥重要作用。因此，它们可能导致生殖隔离。大白蚁是旧大陆热带半干旱生态系统中一个重要的生态分类群。在这里，我们使用属大白蚁在东非作为一个模型，以调查的作用，碳氢化合物的辐射白蚁。在一个组合的烃类变化和实验分析的行为调制的烃类的生物遗传学为基础的分析，我们希望探索的作用烃类的辐射属大白蚁。

Radiations of termite genera are poorly understood. In contrast to the morphological uniformity of termites, termites use a considerable diversity of chemical substances to interact with nestmates, competitors, or predators. Especially cuticular hydrocarbons are postulated to play a key role in species and nestmate recognition. Hydrocarbons show considerable variations within as well as between species and thus may play an important role during speciation. Hence, they may lead to reproductive isolation. Macromtermes is an ecologically important taxon of semi-arid ecosystems in the Old World tropics. We here use the genus Macrotermes in East Africa as a model to investigate the role of hycrocarbons for radiations in termites. In a combination of phylogenetically based analysis of hydrocarbon variation and experimental analysis of behaviour modulates by hydrocarbons we wish to explore the role of hydrocarbons for the radiation of the genus Macrotermes.