Tons of Termites
The termites at right can eat up wooden buildings. But these pests are also a big help to plants, according to a recent discovery by scientist Paul Eggleton.
When Eggleton dug down in a West African rain forest, he found that the dirt was crawling with termites. Eggleton says termites decompose (break down) dead plants by eating them. Termites' waste puts nutrients from the plants back into the soil, where it helps new plants grow.
Based on the thousands of termites he saw, Eggleton estimated (made an educated guess about) the total weight of all the termites in the world. The graph at right shows Eggleton's estimate, compared with the weight of the world's people, elephants, and tress. That's a lot of tiny bugs!
GRAPH: * How much is one million tons? The weight of about 250,000 elephants!
Source: Scholastic SuperScience
When Eggleton dug down in a West African rain forest, he found that the dirt was crawling with termites. Eggleton says termites decompose (break down) dead plants by eating them. Termites' waste puts nutrients from the plants back into the soil, where it helps new plants grow.
Based on the thousands of termites he saw, Eggleton estimated (made an educated guess about) the total weight of all the termites in the world. The graph at right shows Eggleton's estimate, compared with the weight of the world's people, elephants, and tress. That's a lot of tiny bugs!
GRAPH: * How much is one million tons? The weight of about 250,000 elephants!
Source: Scholastic SuperScience
posted by James at 6:35 AM
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