A Mélange of Microfauna
The microbiome is a hot topic today because of its importance in digestive health. Imagine the microbiome you would need if you ate wood and little else. Here, you can see the variety of microfauna (microorganisms within the microbiome) in the gut of a termite.
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DownloadA Mélange of Microfauna
The microbiome is a hot topic today because of its importance in digestive health. Imagine the microbiome you would need if you ate wood and little else. Here, you can see the variety of microfauna (microorganisms within the microbiome) in the gut of a termite.
What am I looking at?
This video shows the wide range of microorganisms that live in the gut of a termite – an insect famous for feeding almost exclusively on wood.
Biology in the background
Termites live in large colonies, which is why they can be a problem for the structural stability of an infested building. To digest the wood they eat, termites require the assistance of a variety of microorganisms that live in their digestive system. While the human gut microbiome consists of various bacteria species (known as gut flora), termites rely on symbiotic bacteria called archaea, as well as on protists/flagellates – the latter being the stars of this video. These microorganisms produce chemicals that help break down the wood fibers into a form that termites can absorb and metabolize, such as simple sugars.
You can learn more about this contributor, Protist Lab Films, and their perspective on the tight communal relationship between termites and the microorganisms living inside them, from Nikon Small World’s Masters of Microscopy.
The largest organism you see in this video (a microbe called Pseudotrichonympha) can grow up to 400 micrometers long, or roughly five times larger than the width of a human hair.
Technique
This video was created using a type of light microscopy called bright field microscopy with polarized light.
Fabian J. Weston, Protist Lab Films