Day 16: 11:30 hours…
Our exploration of the forest floor continues.
We have seen a great number of insects, round worms, mites, and assorted other scavengers, predators, and harvesters. All contribute to the breakdown of dead forest material, such as wood and leaves. The soil becomes enriched, and the trees and other living plants benefit. Decomposing and processing the dead cells of a leaf are one thing, but I wonder how does the forest floor ecosystem deal with something as enormous and solid as a fallen tree?
12:10 hours… It isn’t long before we discover the answer! Climbing up from the humus we find ourselves beside a massive object – a fallen log! The wood is covered with holes, and keen-eyed Tara catches a glimpse of something moving inside, some kind of insect.
Perhaps the insect will lead us to the answer. With a triumphant shout, Tara declares: “Follow that bug!”
12:30 hours… Steering the Terra Rover we enter the fallen log through one of the insect holes. What awaits in this lightless world?
I fire up the head lamps. Termites by the hundreds appear, populating a complex gallery of tunnels and chambers that riddle the interior of the log.
Two kinds of termites are visible – the workers, and the larger soldiers with long sharp mandibles. Somewhere in this vast colony is a termite queen, responsible for laying eggs.
The workers are busy little insects, relentlessly munching away on the log. With magnification we can see the wood chips inside a termite’s stomach – and swarming around those wood chips… something else.
Before I can stop her, Tara grabs a diving suit and sets out to discover what is living inside the termite’s gut!
The termite’s stomach and intestine, to our surprise, are full of various kinds of single-celled microorganisms!
The termite does not digest the wood after all. That is the job of its digestive helpers! The termite chews up bits of wood, swallows – but the process of digestion cannot begin without help from the hungry inhabitants of it’s innards!
The relationship between the termite and its guests is called symbiosis.
Without this symbiotic relationship, the termite would be unable to digest a single chip of wood and would starve.