Termite Assemblage and Damage on Tree Trunks in Fast-Growing Teak Plantations of Different Age: A Case Study in West Java, Indonesia

Abstract

Simple SummaryThe fact that termites attack healthy living trees is little known, being overshadowed by termite attacks in urban settings. Nonetheless, termites do attack living trees, especially on plantations, and this issue needs greater visibility. Here, we investigate termite attacks on fast-growing teakwood, Tectona grandis L.f., and the development of termite communities over time on experimental plantation landscapes located in Cibinong, West Java, Indonesia. Teakwood is a valuable and popular material in the wood industry that has various uses. Our results indicated that termite communities become more complex over time, as demonstrated by the increasing number of species and occupied areas. At the same time, damage observed on tree trunks was limited to bark and was related to the activities of termites that consume fresh biomass, like fungus-growing termites (functional group IIf). In addition, landscapes with overgrown weeds and shrubs were observed to have more damage on tree trunks than did groomed landscapes. Managing understory vegetation might suppress termite attacks on fast-growing teakwood, although we also observed that termite attacks on trunks were inevitable if termites that belong to functional group IIf have managed to occupy large areas.We conducted surveys of termite assemblages and tree trunks damaged by termites in teakwood (Tectona grandis L.f.) plantations. The surveys were conducted in five-, six-, and nine-year-old plantations. We used a standardized belt-transect to collect termites and build tree inventories. Data of collected termites at the genus and functional-group levels and termites’ diversity between plantations were compared with their attack rate. The results showed that four genera of soil recycler termites belonging to groups IIf and III were present across the plantations. Distribution analysis suggested that termite communities might develop from a stochastic distribution to a nonrandom co-occurrence distribution over time. Diversity analysis showed an increased nestedness-resultant diversity contribution to the total dissimilarity over time. Observed attacks on tree trunks were superficial and limited to the outer bark, with group IIf as the main contributor. Furthermore, the level of damage done by termites to tree trunks was positively correlated with increases in the group IIf occupancy area and overgrown understory vegetation. Plantation management by maintaining an adequate understory might suppress termite attacks on fast-growing teakwood, although in the case of our study, termite attacks are inevitable when termites from group IIf were already present.