King’s role in termite society: the case of Kalotermes flavicollis (Isoptera: Kalotermitidae)

Activities and social interactions of male and female replacement reproductives of Kalotermes flavicollis were compared in an ethogram type investigation. The study was conducted on colonies whose members, suitably representing all castes and developmental stages, were individually labelled. Data were collected using THE OBSERVER (Ver. 3.0, Noldus Information Technology, Wageningen), by scan-sampling all subjects of each colony from videorecorded images performed at preprogrammed intervals evenly arranged along the 24 hours, during a 16 days period.Behavioural patterns of the king and the queen were similar in size, consisting in 13 elements, representing the behavioural categories of individual maintenance, feeding, communication and social interactions, but were extremely different in the frequency of some behaviours. The male reproductive appeared as the most active member of the colony. Its continuous shiftings within the nest and the abundance of vibratory movements, together with the high frequency of social contacts and peculiarity of grooming patterns, seem to confer to the king a very important function in termite society. These data suggest a sex-based behavioural specialization of the two reproductives in colony organization and equilibrium.