Structural Connectedness of Termite Tunnel Networks

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Subterranean termites excavate tunnels for searching and transporting food below the ground, which in turn causes complicated tunnel networks. In the present study, we explored the connectedness of the networks by using spectral graph theory. In the theory, tunnel network pattern can be constitutively expressed by the Laplacian matrix, and among the set of all eigenvalues of the matrix, the second eigenvalue directly reflects the degree of the connectedness. We constructed the simulated tunnel networks for Coptotermes formosanus and Riparius flavipes by the use of a lattice model suggested by Lee et al., (2006) and computed their connectedness. The results showed that the values of the connectedness between the two species were statistically-significantly different. We briefly discussed the results in relation to foraging efficiency.