Submitted by Jos? Henrique Henrique (jose.neves@ufvjm.edu.br) on 2018-07-03T22:32:05Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) luis_paulo_sant'ana.pdf: 2279435 bytes, checksum: 8ec20ec33178116aca9065abd7e6cf32 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Rodrigo Martins Cruz (rodrigo.cruz@ufvjm.edu.br) on 2018-07-18T12:59:05Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) luis_paulo_sant'ana.pdf: 2279435 bytes, checksum: 8ec20ec33178116aca9065abd7e6cf32 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-07-18T12:59:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) luis_paulo_sant'ana.pdf: 2279435 bytes, checksum: 8ec20ec33178116aca9065abd7e6cf32 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior (CAPES) / Muitos fatores t?m sido pautados como atributos que podem ajudar a entender melhor o padr?o de escava??o de t?neis em cupins. Dentre estes destacam-se o comportamento auto-organizado, fatores ambientais, caracter?sticas morfol?gicas dos oper?rios, comunica??o qu?mica e f?sica, a escava??o por ?escavadores de topo?, e a teoria do forrageamento ?timo. Desta forma, atrav?s do presente trabalho objetivou-se investigar se o n?mero de oper?rios influencia no padr?o de escava??o de t?neis em Cortaritermes silvestrii. Para as observa??es do comportamento de escava??o foram utilizadas arenas bidimensionais preenchidas por areia com diferentes n?meros de indiv?duos em cada bateria, variando de 20 a 200 oper?rios. Uma vez registrada a atividade de escava??o, ap?s 24 horas de experimento, foram medidos a ?rea escavada, a taxa de escava??o, o n?mero total de t?neis, o tempo para in?cio da escava??o (TIE), o tempo para in?cio da bifurca??o (TIB) e os ?ngulos entre as bifurca??es observadas. Al?m disso, tamb?m foi feita uma simula??o, utilizando dados emp?ricos, para estimar a efici?ncia de forrageio em C. silvestrii com diferentes n?meros de oper?rios e diferentes tipos de distribui??o do recurso no substrato. Em rela??o aos resultados obtidos, observou-se que existe uma rela??o entre a ?rea escavada (?= 0,4959, p < 0.001), a taxa de escava??o, o n?mero total de t?neis escavados (? = 0,3917, p < 0.001), o TIE (? = -0,2935, p < 0,001), TIB (? = - 0,0729, p <0,001), e o n?mero de oper?rios em cada arena. Ao analisar os ?ngulos, observou-se uma frequ?ncia maior de ?ngulos menos redundantes (muito pequenos ou muito maiores). Os resultados obtidos na simula??o indicam que o n?mero de oper?rios n?o influencia no retorno energ?tico obtido durante a escava??o, e que provavelmente C. silvestrii explora recursos distribu?dos de forma aglomerada ou aleat?ria, muito mais eficiente do que recursos distribu?dos uniformemente no substrato. Portanto, concluiu-se que o n?mero de oper?rios est? relacionado ao padr?o de escava??o de t?neis em C. silvestrii e que este padr?o observado possivelmente est? ligado ? forma com que esta esp?cie explora seus recursos. / Disserta??o (Mestrado) ? Programa de P?s-gradua??o em Biologia Animal, Universidade Federal dos Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri, 2017. / Several factors have been ruled as attributes that may help better understand the pattern of tunneling in termites. These include self-organized behavior, environmental factors, morphological characteristics of workers, chemical and physical communication, excavation by "top-excavators", and optimal foraging theory. In this way, the objective of this work was to investigate whether the number of workers influences the tunneling pattern in Cortaritermes silvestrii. For the observations of the excavation behavior, two-dimensional arenas filled with sand with different numbers of individuals in each battery were used, ranging from 20 to 200 workers. Once the excavation activity was observed, after 24 hours, it was measured the excavated area, total number of tunnels, time to start of excavation (TIE), time to start of bifurcation (TIB), and the angles between the observed bifurcations. In addition, a simulation using empirical data was used to estimate the foraging efficiency in C. silvestrii with different numbers of workers and different types of distribution of the resource in the substrate. In relation to the results obtained, it was observed that there is a relation between the excavated area (? = 0.4959, p <0.001), the excavation rate, the total number of excavated tunnels (? = 0.3917, p <0.001), the TIE (? = -0.2935, p <0.001), TIB (? = - 0.0729, p <0.001), and the number of workers in each arena. When analyzing the angles, a greater frequency of less redundant angles (very small or much larger angles) was observed. The results obtained in the simulation indicate that the number of workers does not influence the energetic return obtained during the excavation, and that probably C. silvestrii exploits resources distributed in agglomerated or random ways, much more efficiently than resources evenly distributed in the substrate. Therefore, it was concluded that the number of workers is related to the pattern of tunnel excavation in C. silvestrii and that this observed pattern is possibly related to the way in which this species exploits its resources.