Termite transplants
7th May 2025
Termites, infamous for their ability to destroy wood, are rarely welcomed into rainforests that have been painstakingly replanted. But a new paper suggests that termite transplants may be necessary to help regenerating forests to thrive. Led by Dr Baptiste Wijas, a postdoctoral fellow at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies (New York) and visiting academic at the University of Queensland, in conjunction with Prof Lucas Cernusak and Dr Alex Cheesman at James Cook University, the study was conducted in part of JCU’s Daintree Rainforest Observatory, as well as nearby sites that had been replanted by Rainforest Rescue. They found that there were lower rates of termite-driven decay in the replanted forest compared to the old-growth forest. Wijas says, “People tend to think that by just planting a diversity of trees, these rainforests will regenerate. But it's worth thinking about: should we actually be putting in other organisms as well, to restore other ecosystem processes that help the forest function?”
Read more:
JCU News Release: https://www.jcu.edu.au/news/releases/2025/may/new-rainforests-needs-a-termite-transplant
Decadal recovery of fungal but not termite deadwood decay in tropical rainforest
Published May 6 in the Journal of Applied Ecology
https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2664.70053
