Pacific Southwest Research Station, USDA Forest Service, P.O. Box 245, Berkeley, CA-94701, USA.
Cuticular hydrocarbons were characterized as chemotaxonomic characters to construct a phylogeny of the termites. We used species of termites in the families Termopsidae, Kalotermitidae, Rhinotermitidae and Termitidae. Several species in each of the following genera were included in this analysis: Zootermopsis, Coptotermes, Reticulitermes, Incisitermes, Neotermes, Cryptotermes, and Nasutitermes. Additional species were Procryptotermes corniceps, Heterotermes sp., Parvitermes wolcotti, Macrotermes malacensis. The wood roach, Cryptocercus sp. was used as the outgroup. Hydrocarbons were characterized by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. GC-MS peak areas were converted to percentages of the total hydrocarbon fraction. Analysis of relatedness among taxa was performed using Phylogenetic Analysis Using Parsimony (PAUP) [MAC version 3.1.1 (Swofford, 1993)]. Our phylogenetic analysis based on cuticular hydrocarbon characters does not appear to corroborate the established phylogeny of the termites. Rather, cuticular hydrocarbon mixtures appear to group termite species according to habitat/moisture requirements. Cuticular hydrocarbon mixtures can be used for separating species within a genus, and perhaps following evolution within a genus, but are not appropriate characters for higher order taxomony.