Fungus-growing termite caste gut microbiotas. Fungus-growing termite guts

Using amplicon sequencing, we characterise community compositions in sterile (worker and soldier) and reproductive (queen and king) termites from 24 different fungus-growing termite colonies (> 1100 individuals) spanning various locations in Africa. We also elucidated in situ differences and enzymatic capacity variations in the sterile caste guts using fluorescence in situ hybridisation, light and confocal microscopy, and enzymatic profiling.