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The reproductive caste of a mature colony includes a wealthy female and male, known as the queen and king.61 The queen of this colony is responsible for egg production for the colony. Unlike in ants, the king mates with her for life.62 In certain species, the abdomen of the queen swells up dramatically to increase fecundity, a feature known as physogastrism.61 Depending on the species, the queen starts producing reproductive winged alates at a certain period of the year, and huge swarms emerge in the colony when nuptial flight begins.
A young termite nymph. Nymphs first moult into employees, but others may farther moult to become soldiers or alates.
Termites are often compared with the social Hymenoptera (ants and various species of bees and wasps), but their differing evolutionary origins result in major differences in life span. In the eusocial Hymenoptera, the employees are exclusively female. Men (drones) are haploid and develop from unfertilised eggs, while females (both employees and the queen) are both diploid and develop from fertilised eggs.
Depending on species, male and female employees may have different functions in a termite colony.63.
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The entire life cycle of a termite begins with an egg, but is different from that of a bee or ant in that it goes through a developmental process called incomplete metamorphosis, with egg, nymph and adult phases.64 Nymphs resemble small adults, and undergo a series of moults as they grow.
The development of nymphs into adults can take months; the time frame depends on food availability, temperature, and the general population of the colony. Since nymphs are unable to feed themselves, employees must feed them, but employees also get involved in the social life of their colony and also have certain other activities to achieve such as foraging, building or maintaining the nest or tending to the queen.5367 Pheromones govern the caste system in termite colonies, preventing all but a very few of the termites from becoming fertile queens.68.
Queens of the eusocial termite Reticulitermes speratus are effective at a long lifespan without sacrificing fecundity. These long-lived queens have a significantly lower degree of oxidative damage, including oxidative DNA damage, than workers, soldiers and nymphs.69 The lower levels of damage seem to be due to increased catalase, an enzyme that protects against oxidative stress.69.
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By way of example, alates in certain species appear during the day in summer while others emerge during winter.71 The nuptial flight might also begin at dusk, when the alates swarm around areas with lots of lights. The time when nuptial flight begins depends on the environmental conditions, the time of day, humidity, wind speed and precipitation.71 The number of termites in a colony also varies, with the bigger species normally having 1001,000 individuals.
The queen only lays 1020 eggs in the very early stages of the colony, but lays as many as 1,000 per day when the colony is several years old.53 At maturity, a main queen has a great capability to lay eggs. In certain species, the mature queen has a greatly distended abdomen and might produce 40,000 eggs per day.72 Both adult ovaries may have some 2,000 ovarioles each.73 The abdomen increases the queen's body length to a number of times more than before mating and reduces her ability to maneuver freely; attendant employees offer assistance. .
The king grows only slightly larger after initial mating and continues to partner with the queen for life (a termite queen can live between 30Â to 50Â years); this is quite different from ant colonies, in that a queen visit this pagesite link teammates once with the man (s) and stores the gametes for life, as the male ants die shortly after mating.6267 If your queen is absent, a termite king produces pheromones which encourage the development of replacement termite queens.74 As the queen and king are monogamous, sperm competition does not occur.75.
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Termites going through incomplete metamorphosis on the road to becoming alates type a subcaste in certain species of termite, functioning as potential supplementary reproductives. These supplementary reproductives only grow into main reproductives upon the passing of a king or queen, or when the primary reproductives are separated from the colony.6676 Supplementaries have the ability to replace a deceased principal reproductive, and there may also be more than a single supplementary within a colony.53 Some queens have the ability to switch from sexual reproduction to asexual reproduction.