Tropical wood species, the west indian drywood termite and the game Insect World

• Ano de defesa: 2019
• Autor(a) principal: Cosme Júnior, Lírio
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Federal de Viçosa
• Palavras-chave em Português: Térmita; Vibroacústica; Madeira - Seleção; Aprendizagem baseada em jogos; Jogos educativos; CIENCIAS AGRARIAS::AGRONOMIA::FITOSSANIDADE::ENTOMOLOGIA AGRICOLA
• Link de acesso: https://locus.ufv.br/handle/123456789/32418

The West Inndian drywood termite Cryptotermes brevis (Walker) is an essentially social species that live and forage with their conspecific inside wood pieces, where they perform a suite of behavioral individual and group traits (grooming, autogrooming, tunnel excavation, cleaning and etc). Within context, this termite species exhibits other relevant behaviors (defense alarm and parental care), including substrate selection for colony establishment, which is mediated by the size and quality of the wood, but other factors may be involved, as a social factor, which has received little attention. Therefore, here we tested the hypothesis that vibrational cues and wood chemical components influence the wood choice behavior by C. brevis. For this purpose, free- and no-choice tests were performed to assess termite colonization, as well as the parameters of colony success (consumption and survival). We identified two behaviors performed by termites inside the wood walking and chewing, but only chewing was characterized and used in the playback experiments. Overall, drywood termite exhibits random choice between wood-testing unities, indicating that the chewing cues are not used as a social trigger to mediate conspecific recruiting. Nevertheless, contrasting outcomes in wood consumption and termite survival were observed from the colonies established in wood infested and non-infested, which is likely related to the cost of establishing of a new colony. We also tested whether the wood-chemical components (i.e., lignin, holocellulose, and extractives) from nine tropical wood types could influence the drywood termite choice. Here, the colonization and wood-consumption varied with wood species, but only under free-choice testing. Furthermore, no significant correlation between termite colonization and the wood chemical components was observed, which suggests a negligible role of wood chemical components in the substrate choice behavior by drywood termites. Lastly, we used an entomological game to assess whether it can be a tool for teaching entomology, which was tested by scoring the learning achieved and feedback (functional and personal) provided by undergraduate students. The game (Insect World) received positive feedback from a functional (i.e., content, manual and designer) and personal (i.e., fun, fast, competitive and, instructive) perspective provided by students, although some difficulties also were pointed. Although the game activity increased student learning highlighting its importance as a teaching tool activity in the classroom, encouraging creativity and healthy competition among students. Besides, the game also subjects students andteachers to an integrative and dynamic teaching-mode shifting from the traditional learning method. Keywords: Termite. Vibroacoustic. Wood-choice. Game-based learning. Educational games.