Study on methods of termite feeding trials
MA Yanjun
LI Peiguang
SUI He
LIU Jidong
Abstract：Objective To study the feeding habits of Reticulitermes in feeding trials and give suggestions on the methods of termite feeding trials.Methods No choice feeding trials were used to determine the consumption of sample C(control),sample P(better feeding preference than control)and sample N(worse feeding preference than control).Paired choice feeding trials and multiple choice feeding trials were used to determine the consumption of each sample by adjusting the quantity of different samples.Results Under no choice condition,there was no significant difference in the consumption of C and P samples,which was significantly higher than that of N samples.Under choice condition,termites would randomly feed the samples with the same feeding preferences.For samples with different feeding preferences,under the condition of paired choice,termite consumed lager amount of the sample with better feeding preferences.Under the condition of multiple choice,if there was only one sample had the best feeding preference,the termites consumed the largest amount of the sample,if there were multiple samples with the same feeding preferences,the termites consumed extremely unbalanced amount of these samples.Conclusion It seems unable to select the samples with better feeding preference only through no choice feeding trials.Paired choice trials can judge feeding preference of the samples more accurately.If multiple choice trials are used,the number of samples should be strictly controlled and more repeated experiments should be done.
Keywords：Reticulitermeschoice feeding trialsno choice feeding trialsfeeding preference
Publication Date：2025-02-19
Online Publishing Date：2025-08-15(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：6( 74-79 )