View Single Post
Old 24th August 2007, 04:25 AM   #4 (permalink)
Sean Freeman
PDF King & Arborist Extrodinaire
 
Sean Freeman's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Townsville Nth Queensland & Gold Coast Sth Queensland
Posts: 1,669
Default

I don't want to come across like an entomologist, cause you all know I'm not however for me the answer to your hypothetical is yes...but very slowly. Termites do not eat live wood they follow the advances of dysfunction in the tree contained more or less by CODIT...however some termites have an interesting weapon..they farm wood digesting fungi and by doing so actually make available much more wood tissue than would otherwise be the case.

Mycology - Animal Interactions - Symbiotic Interactions

Termites' symbiotic fungi & social homeostasis

My own dissections of declining large gums of various species up here certainly suggests there's more going on even with our little (and not so little!) ozzie white ants!
__________________
Sean

Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky,
We fell them down and turn them into paper,
That we may record our emptiness.
- Kahlil Gibran

Sean Freeman is offline   Reply With Quote