FUNCTIONING OF THE SOIL SYSTEM - Soil Ecology - page 516

or ingested soil organic matter. Selective elimination of C may occur through methane
emission in species possessing methanogenic bacteria, or as through

respiration of the fungus gardens of the Macrotermitinae (Figure IV.63 ).

The end products of termite digestion may have high C and N contents due to their
selection for C-rich food materials and N fixation in the gut. For example, the N con-
tent of the excreta of the Australian termite Amitermes laurensis is 1.7 % in spite of
a diet low in nitrogen (<0.10 %). Some termite mounds that contain large amounts of
faecal material may have high inorganic N concentrations. Nitrate concentrations in
the mounds of grass and litter-feeding termites are generally less than 100 mg
(Okello-Oloya et al., 1985; Barnes, 1992) although Barnes et al. (1992) found maximum