Abstract:
Termitescause a serious menace to wood structures all over the world. They rely mostly on the entozoicfauna for the digestion of cellulosic materials. The present study is based upon the diversity of flagellates protists isolated from the gut of a lower termite, Heterotermes indicola,belonging to three genera i.e. Holomastigotes (H. campanula, H. annandalei andH. metchnikowi), Holomastigotoides (H. hemigynum, H. hartmanni, H. kempi, H. koidzumi and H. metchnikowi)andPseudotrichonympha (P. grassii).The largest and most abundant speciesPseudotrichonympha grassii was identified by molecular studies using the SSU rRNA gene, confirmedby phylogenetic analysisand compared with that of the P. grassiiisolates reported from other parts of the world. The results showed that the P. grassiiobserved in our study was phylogenetically most closely related to the Japanese P. grassiiisolate. The biodiversity of the entozoic flagellates is important in targeting for biological control of termites as well as for isolation and culturing of flagellates to produce cellulases, an important industrial enzyme.
