SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF CASTES WITHIN COLONIES 
OF THE TERMITE INCISITERMES SCHWARZE 
By Peter Luykx, Jack Michel, Jeannette K. Luykx * 2 
Introduction 
In order to describe the social organization of termites with any 
precision, it is essential to have quantitative information on the 
spatial distribution of castes within the colony. Such information is 
important not only for descriptive purposes, but also because it can 
give clues to the interactions that take place within and among the 
different castes. 
Precise information on caste distribution within colonies is ordi- 
narily not easy to obtain, because colonies are usually completely 
disrupted in opening them up, and because in any case the descrip- 
tion of spatial organization in large three-dimensional or dispersed 
colonies in quantitative terms is difficult. But in some locations, 
colonies of certain kalotermitid species offer a unique opportunity 
to obtain just such data. In the Oleta River Mangrove Preserve just 
north of Miami, Florida, large numbers of Incisitermes schwarzi are 
found in slender, dead mangrove tree-trunks, where they form 
nearly one-dimensional colonies. Because the colonies are relatively 
small and are entirely above ground, and because the termites do 
not forage outside the wood, whole colonies can be collected in 
segments and analyzed. The results of such an analysis are the sub- 
ject of this paper. 
While some of the findings of this study — the association of lar- 
vae with the royal pair, the aggregation of nymphs and alates — have 
been noted before in a casual way in the general descriptions of 
many other students of the Isoptera (e.g., Imms, 1919; Grasse, 
1949), this is the first quantitative description of the spatial distribu- 
tion of castes in a termite, and is worth putting on record for that 
reason. 
'This is contribution no. 245 from the Program in Tropical Biology, Ecology, and 
Behavior, Dept, of Biology, Univ. of Miami. 
2 Department of Biology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL 33124, U.S.A. 
Manuscript received by the editor June 7, 1986 
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