Wow......check this out. Wonder if mounds have any fertilizer value.

https://us.cnn.com/travel/article/termites-brazil-old-intl/index.html

 

Wow......check this out. Wonder if mounds have any fertilizer value.

https://us.cnn.com/travel/article/termites-brazil-old-intl/index.html

I'm certain they do. Forest-bottom debris would normally be considered mulch because its carbon:nitrogen ratio is too high. It has some nitrogen in it, but the carbon dominates and the breakdown of the nutrients is nitrogen-limited. Here come the termites. They burn off a lot of the carbon as methane and CO2 while hanging on to as much nitrogen as they can. The remaining soil should be relatively enriched if you can get it with the termites still in it and dead so that plants can get at the nitrogen.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/science...ands-termites-built-millions-dirt-mounds.html

 

From termites to broiler chicken.

https://phys.org/news/2018-12-broiler-chicken-hallmark-anthropocene.html

 

From termites to broiler chicken.

https://phys.org/news/2018-12-broiler-chicken-hallmark-anthropocene.html

FWIW, I was stunned to learn that 100? years ago, the annual per-capita chicken consumption in the U.S. was just a couple pounds. This MIGHT have been from a lack of data, in other words it was a couple pounds of 'commercial' chicken versus chickens culled from the back yard.