Termite Mounds Lead to 'Islands of Fertility' (4 of 12) (IMAGE)

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Termite Mounds Lead to 'Islands of Fertility' (4 of 12)

Caption

Trench dug through the center of a termite mound at Mpala Research Centre, central Kenya, is shown. Visible just below ground level are three brain-shaped fungus comb chambers, where termites nest and cultivate fungus. These chambers are connected by passageways, and a single termite mound may contain dozens of such chambers. The resulting air spaces ("macropores") in the soil enable greater water infiltration and gas exchange, which promotes plant growth. This material relates to a paper that appeared in the Feb. 6, 2015 issue of Science, published by AAAS. The paper, by J.A. Bonachela at Princeton University in Princeton, NJ, and colleagues was titled, "Termite mounds can increase the robustness of dryland ecosystems to climatic change."

Credit

[Credit: Rob Pringle]

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