Termites are very abundant in tropical regions and play crucial role in degrading woody substrates. Although it is known that gut symbionts are necessary for termites to decompose feeding substrate, there is a little knowledge about role of fungal community in this process. It was showed that yeasts occur at high numbers in the intestine of lower and higher termites and they had xylanase and cellulase activity. Although symbiosis of Termitomyces and Termitidae is well studied, there is no systematic information about gut mycoflora in most of termite species.
To narrow this gap of knowledge, Illumina sequencing of two fungal markers – ITS2 and LSU in over 50 termite species was employed. Four feeding groups, different locations and taxonomical groups of termites were covered.
We found low diversity and abundance of fungal species in the guts of lower termites and vice versa. Fungal communities of soil feeding termites were more even than in wood feeders. Termites were clustering in fungal OTUs PCoA according diet in our study, as well in study of bacterial gut communities. Huge unknow diversity of fungi in termites suggests that symbionts are likely unknow species. The most abundant were saprotrophic and plant pathogenic orders Eurotiales and Helotiales.