Study
Termite sensitivity to temperature affects global wood decay rates
Zanne, A. E.; Flores-Moreno, H.; Powell, J. R.; Cornwell, W. K.; Dalling, J. W.; Austin, A. T.; Classen, A. T.; Eggleton, P.; Okada, K.-I.; Parr, C. L.
Science, 2022
Identical blocks of the same wood were buried and left on the ground at sites spanning most of the world climates, half of them caged to exclude termites, and recovered after a set period so that mass lost to microbes and mass lost to termites could be separated.
- Studied in
- Isoptera, Fungi
- Sample size
- 133 sites across six continents, using standardised wood blocks
Microbial decay roughly doubled for each ten-degree rise in temperature; termite decay rose almost seven times as fast over the same range, and was also strongly limited by rainfall. Termite discovery of wood was concentrated in warm, seasonally dry places.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Termites are far more temperature-sensitive than microbes, so warming is likely to expand their role in wood decay and shift where deadwood carbon is released.
How NatureHQ reads it
The study that stops "fungi decompose wood" from being the whole sentence. Across much of the warm world the animals get there first, and they respond to climate on a completely different curve from the fungi — which means a warming forest does not simply decay faster, it decays differently, by different organisms, in different places. It sits alongside the finding that insects do about 29% of deadwood decay globally and explains where that 29% is concentrated.
- Standardised blocks of one wood type, which is what makes sites comparable and is not what a forest floor contains.
- Cages exclude termites and also alter the microclimate inside them.
- A snapshot over a fixed period rather than decay followed to completion.
The same block of wood, at 133 sites, half of it behind mesh
How much of wood decay is done by animals rather than microbes, and where?
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Published by: American Association for the Advancement of SciencePublished in Science or Science Advances (AAAS).
doi.org/10.1126/science.abo3856
Checked by an editor on 2026-08-31.
A note on this reference: Searching the catalogues for this paper turned up an unrelated 2005 study about kiln-dried larch, which happens to share the words termite, decay and wood. Our automatic check saw the mismatch and refused to attach a reference number, which is what it is for. An editor then looked the number up directly: it returns exactly this paper, in Science, in 2022, first author Zanne.
NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-08-31.