Comparative morphological divergence among few common Indian species of the family Termitidae: Isoptera

Morphometric variations among the soldier samples from thirty three nests of five species namely, Odontotermes ceylonicus (Wasmann), O. horni (Wasmann), O. obesus (Rambur), O. redemanni (Wasmann) and Trinervitermes biformis (Wasmann) (Isoptera, Termitidae) were statistically analyzed for mean, standard deviation, standard error, coefficient of variability, confidence interval (95%) and analysis of variance (one way ANOVA). The mean values of the Jnanabharathi population samples and the ANOVA values were compared according to Tukey-Kramer test. The measurements play a very important role, especially for identification of species; on the other hand the reliability of the measurements will also depend on the extent of variability of the structures observed between the colonies. Each individual soldier were subjected to eight parameters: i) total body length; ii) maximum width of head; iii) head length without rostrum or mandible; iv) pronotum lenght; v) pronotum width; vi) body index; vii) head index and viii) pronotum index. Further, the five species recorded were clustered based on coding the mean values followed by Manhattan distance. The Tukey-Kramer test values were coded followed by Mcquity distance and the dendrograms obtained were compared to ascertain the extent of morphological relationship among the species.