The Neotropical family Serritermitidae is a monophyletic group of termites including two genera, Serritermes and Glossotermes, with different way-of-life, the former being the sole obligatory inquiline among “lower” termites, while the latter is a single-site nester feeding on dry rotten red wood. Like the most advanced termite’s family, the Termitidae, the Serritermitidae is an inner group of the paraphyletic family “Rhinotermitidae”, but unlike the Termitidae, it has been poorly studied so far. In this study, we bring new insights into the chemical ecology of this key taxon. We studied the trail-following pheromone of Serritermes serrifer and we identified (10Z,13Z)-nonadeca-10,13-dien-2-one as the only component of the trail-following pheromone of this termite species, as it is the case in Glossotermes, the other genus belonging to Serritermitidae. This result makes the family Serritermitidae clearly distinct from other Rhinotermitidae, such as the termites Psammotermes and Prorhinotermes, that use (3Z,6Z,8E)-dodeca-3,6,8-trien-1-ol and/or neocembrene as trail-following pheromones.

新热带亚种Serritermitidae是一类白蚁，包括两个属Serritermes和Glossotermes，它们的生活方式不同，前者是“下”白蚁中唯一的强制性询问，而后者是靠巢取食的单点巢穴干烂红木。与最先进的白蚁科一样，Serritermitidae是副生动物科“ Rhinotermitidae”的一个内部群体，但是与Termitidae不同，到目前为止，对它的研究还很少。在这项研究中，我们为该关键分类群的化学生态学带来了新见解。我们研究了Serritermes serrifer的追踪信息素并确定了（10 Z，13 Z）-nonadeca-10,13-dien-2-one是该白蚁物种尾随信息素的唯一组成部分，就像另一种属于Serritermitidae的Glossotermes一样。这一结果使得家庭齿白蚁科从其他鼻白蚁科，明显不同，如白蚁Psammotermes和Prorhinotermes，即使用（3 Ž，6 Ž，8 ë） -十二碳-3,6,8-三烯-1-醇和/或neocembrene作为跟踪信息素。