Abstract
Termites are considered soil engineers and key bioturbators in tropical and subtropical soils. A large number of studies have described the specific properties of the aboveground mounds that termites construct to protect their colonies from environmental hazards. However, there is a paucity of information on properties of soil sheetings; more temporary but often extensive structures are covering over or inserted within substrates on the ground such as leaves and woody materials or components of arboreal runways. Such sheetings are conspicuously produced not only by the Macrotermitinae but also by many other unrelated taxa. Here, we review the available literature and discuss (i) the relationship between rainfall and soil sheeting production and (ii) how termites affect the clay and C contents in soil sheetings. This reveals that sheeting production is highly variable and site specific. We also found that soil sheetings are always enriched in clay, but their impacts on soil C content are variable and related to the C content of the parent soil and to the quality of the substrates consumed by termites.
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