By Kacey Deamer, Staff
Writer | August 23, 2016 03:41pm ET
When male termites are single,
and no female mates can be found, the guys tend to form homosexual couples in
order to survive, a new study finds.
These homosexual pairings may
give male Japanese termites an
evolutionary edge, according to new research. Scientists found that when female
mates are lacking, male termites will pair up and nest together. These same-sex
pairs will even take over a heterosexual couple's nest,
killing the resident male so that one can member of the male-male pair can mate
with the female, the researchers said.
Scientists previously thought
homosexual pairings for invertebrates like insects were the result of misrecognition
of males as females. However, in the new study, researchers at Kyoto University
in Japan found that the male termites in same-sex couplings did not act as if
they had mistaken their partner as female.
"Japanese termites usually
make nests in monogamous, heterosexual pairs," study lead scientist
Nobuaki Mizumoto, an insect ecologist at Kyoto University, said in a
statement. "In theory, misrecognizing a female for a male in a
monogamous mating system should incur considerable costs for reproduction.
There had to be some sort of benefit if this were a common behavior."
Male termites do not survive long
on their own, but those who nested with another male survived much longer,
according to the study. Male-male pairings were also beneficial when searching
for female termites, Mizumoto said, a time when the risk of becoming prey is
higher.
The researchers monitored the
homosexual termites'
behavior and saw the insects build nests together, just as
heterosexual couples did. Once a heterosexual couple completed its nest and
began digging tunnels surrounding it, a male-male pair would travel through the
tunnel to invade, killing the male occupant of the nest. Genetic analysis of
the subsequent offspring showed that one of the invading males was able to
successfully mate with the female.
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