Evolutionary process of termite construction revealed by comparative and constructive approaches

该研究项目旨在通过比较分析全球不同物种的白蚁筑巢方式来推断白蚁集体筑巢的进化过程。然而，我无法管理在澳大利亚进行白蚁采样的国际旅行。因此，我专注于（i）从文献中收集数据，以建立一个全面的数据集，用于白蚁系统发育比较分析，并将其与建筑行为和（ii）日本境内白蚁物种的行为观察。本年度的研究成果如下：第一，通过增加白蚁种类，完成了13种日本白蚁的挖掘行为的数据收集。为了进行数据分析，我开发了一个基于Python的软件TManual（github.com/nobuaki-mzmt/tmanual），它可以帮助手动测量动物结构的长度发展。其次，我收集了69种白蚁交配行为的所有可用信息，这增加了第1 - 2年研究中生成的比较数据集（Mizumoto and Bourguignon，2021，Proceedings B; Mizumoto et al.，2022，Evolution），这导致了一篇关于白蚁中同性性行为进化的论文（Mizumoto et al.，2022，PNAS）。第三，我们获得了更多的白蚁在培养皿上的运动模式数据集，以研究筑巢生物学的进化如何导致白蚁的运动能力的差异。研究结果已在5个不同的会议上发表。

This research project aims to infer the evolutionary process of collective building in termites through a comparative analysis of nest construction across various species worldwide. However, I could not manage international travel for termite sampling in Australia. Thus, I focused on (i) compiling data from the literature to build a comprehensive dataset for termite phylogenetic comparative analysis and relate it to building behavior and (ii) behavioral observations of termite species within Japan. This year’s outcome is summarized as follows.First, by adding more termite species this year, I finished collecting data on the tunneling behavior of 13 Japanese termite species. For data analysis, I developed a Python-based software named TManual (github.com/nobuaki-mzmt/tmanual), which assists in manually measuring the length development of animal structures.Second, I compiled all available information about termite mating behavior from 69 species, which adds to the comparative datasets generated in the 1st-2nd years’ research (Mizumoto and Bourguignon, 2021, Proceedings B; Mizumoto et al., 2022, Evolution), which result in a paper on the evolution of same-sex sexual behavior in termites (Mizumoto et al., 2022, PNAS). Third, we obtained more datasets on termite movement patterns on the petri-dish to examine how evolution of nesting biology can result in the differentiated movement capacity of termites. The results have been presented at 5 different conferences.