By Yao-Hua Law
It took hundreds of teabags and thousands of rolls of toilet paper for tropical ecologist Kate Parr and her colleagues to demonstrate that termites help tropical rainforests resist drought. Forests with more termites show more soil moisture, leaf litter decomposition and seedling survival during a drought than forests with fewer termites, the scientists report January 10 in Science.
The study was part of a project by the University of Liverpool and the Natural History Museum in London to examine how ants and termites affect decomposition and consumption of seeds, fruits and carcasses in rainforests of the Maliau Basin Conservation Area in northern Borneo.