! UNDER CONSTRUCTION !

Data will first appear at the publisher of the manuscript as "Supplementary Data" and will then be mirrored on this GitHub page.

The Termite Sex Database

This database centralizes published termite alate numerical sex ratio data and demographics for these species.

We invite researchers to join the initiative and share their dust-taking data with the termite scientific community, through this database repository, on which we plan to periodically update available data on termite demographics and sex ratios.

Population sex ratio

Calculate the mean population numerical sex ratio and its associated 95% confidence interval (CI) for frequency-structured data using the productivity-corrected colonial sex ratios. Formulae sensu Bourke & Franks (1995: 160-161).

[Bourke A.F.G. & Franks N.R. Social Evolution in Ants. Monographs in Behavior and Ecology. (Princeton University Press, 1995).]

### Get function and data
source(file="R_utilities/population_sr.R")
data <- read.table(file = "toy-data/cavitermes_tuberosus.txt", sep="\t", header = TRUE)
### Discard observations made on 50 or fewer individuals.
sub50 <- subset(data, n_tot > 50)
### Get the Population sex ratio
srpop_bourke(sub50$SRN, sub50$n_tot)

Output should be like:

> srpop_bourke(sub50$SRN, sub50$n_tot)
$pop_sex_ratio
[1] 0.4921269

$SD
[1] 0.04704284

$LI
[1] 0.4911274

$UI
[1] 0.4931264

$n_nests
[1] 19

$n_indiv
[1] 8510

The Founder-generalized FG model

Model to predict sex ratio in a population of termites as presented in Hellemans et al. (2025). Model is implemented in the Excel file available with the paper (Supplementary Data 1). The same model is implemented under R under this repository.

### Source the model functions
source(file="R_utilities/related_tables.R")
source(file="R_utilities/model_source.R")

### Define the species parameters
# (parameters below are from Cavitermes tuberosus)
my_parameters = c(
  q = 0.06, # proportion of parthenogenetically-produced female alates
  L = 0.1, # sex-linked genome fraction
  u = 0.18, # proportion of sexually-produced neotenic queens
  n.pq.pk = 27, # number of nests with Primary Queen + Primary King
  n.nq.pk = 12, # number of nests with Neotenic Queens + Primary King
  n.nq.nk = 4, # number of nests with Neotenic Queens + Neotenic King
  n.pq.nk = 0 # number of nests with Primary Queen + Neotenic King
)

### FG model predictions
do.call(founder_population_optimum, as.list(my_parameters))
# [1] 0.5217811

How to cite this repository and review

Hellemans S, Bourguignon T, Roisin Y. 2025. Towards a universal understanding of sex ratio in termites. doi: 10.1038/s42003-025-07771-z