Termites (Blattodea: Isoptera) of southern India: current knowledge on distribution and systematic checklist

A checklist of termites (Blattodea: Isoptera) of southern India with their distribution is presented in this paper. In total, 132 species from five families are listed, of which Termitidae Latreille, 1802 is the dominant family comprising 101 species from 27 genera and four subfamilies. The recent additions of species to the regional termite diversity are Krishnacapritermes dineshan Amina & Rajmohana, 2020, K. manikandan Amina & Rajmohana, 2020, and Pseudocapritermes kunjepu Mathew, 2020. Out of 132 species recorded from southern India, 60 species and five genera are endemic to the region, and the subfamily Termitinae Latreille, 1802 accounts for maximum endemism.


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INTRODUCTION
Termites, also called "white ants" are considered soil engineers and structural pests. Interestingly, they are known as eusocial cockroaches in the order Blattodea Brunner von Wattenwyl, 1882. Molecular phylogenetic data obtained from termites revealed that, Isoptera is not a separate order, and can be considered under Blattodea along with cockroaches (Inward et al. 2007). Krishna et al. (2013) estimated about 2,933 species of extant termites in the world. India has a high diversity of termites, but the Indian termite fauna shares a very small portion of the global fauna, i.e., approximately 295 species, 52 genera, and six families (Krishna et al. 2013;Rajmohana et al. 2019). The first ever taxonomic work on Indian termites was carried out in southern India by König (1779) and the last comprehensive work was by Bose (1984) who reported 95 species from the region. This comprehensive taxonomic work is made to list all the termites recorded so far from the southern Indian region, which should serve as a base for further taxonomic research.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Southern India comprises five states of India-Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana. This region is composed of various climatic conditions ranging from tropical to sub-tropical zones and lies between 8-20°N and 74-85°E. Most of these regions lie between the Western Ghats and Eastern Ghats and the coastal region. The Western Ghats is the hotspot of diversity; climate is hot and arid in some regions whereas in other parts it is hot and humid, or cold with 25-32 °C temperature during hot season and 23-30 °C in the cool season.
The checklist has been mainly based on available literature rather than extensive taxonomic work. The classification is based on Krishna et al. (2013). This list has been compiled based on Roonwal & Chhotani (1989), Chhotani (1997), Krishna et al. (2013), and original descriptions. The literature published until date is considered for making the checklist of termites and their distribution in southern India.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The checklist for the five families and 132 species reported from southern India along with their distribution are provided here. Among the reported, Termitidae Latreille, 1802 is the dominant family comprising of 101 species from four subfamilies. The family Termitidae accounts maximum generic diversity also (27 genera) followed by Kalotermitidae Froggatt, 1897 (five genera), and Rhinotermitidae Froggatt, 1897 (three genera). The genus Odontotermes Holmgren, 1910b (25 species) in the family Termitidae have high species diversity followed by genus Neotermes Holmgren, 1911b from family Kalotermitidae with 10 species.

DISCUSSION
Checklist of species from a defined locality serves as a base for further research. Southern Indian termites comprise 132 species from five families, viz., Hodotermitidae, Kalotermitidae, Rhinotermitidae, Stylotermitidae, and Termitidae. The distribution of few of these species is still uncertain. There is a need to systematically study and identify the voucher specimens of the uncertain records to confirm their presence in the region. Among the reported, Termitidae is the dominant family comprising 106 species from four subfamilies. This indicates that an addition to fauna of termites has occurred in the region after a comprehensive work by Bose (1984), who reported a total of 70 species from 23 genera in the subfamily Termitinae. Five genera and 36 species of the subfamily were added later on. Endemism of termites fauna of the region is high, out of the 138 species, 59 species (42.75%) reported are endemic to southern India. Subfamily Termitinae of family Termitidae accounts for a maximum endemism with 19 species out of 42 endemic species of the family. Among the 37 genera reported from southern India, five genera are endemic to the region with eight species. Three genera of subfamily Termitinae, viz., Indocapritermes, Krishnacapritermes, and Labiocapritermes with one species each in Indocapritermes and Labiocapritermes and four in Krishnacapritermes are endemic to the region. Two genera of subfamily Nasutitermitinae, viz., Ampoulitermes and Emersonitermes with one species each are endemic to southern India. The latest additions of species to the regional termite diversity are Krishnacapritermes dineshan Amina & Rajmohana, 2020 and Krishnacapritermes manikandan Amina & Rajmohana, 2020 are endemic to the Western Ghats of southern India (Amina et al. 2020). Families such as Hodotermitidae and Stylotermitidae have only one representative species in the region; Anacanthotermes viarum and Stylotermes fletcheri, respectively. Hence, this provides an update to the termite fauna of southern India, which, in turn, help termitologist's to look forward for the additions to the termite fauna in the region and direct them towards conservation of endemic species.