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There are 133 species of termites so far recorded from southern India and 73 from Kerala. The present study from different habitats in northern Kerala recorded two species new to southern India and one species new to Kerala, taking the total number to 135 for southern India and 76 for Kerala. The newly reported species are Heterotermes balwanti Mathur & Chhotani, 1969, Odontotermes profeae Akhtar, 1975, and Microcerotermes annandalei Silvestri, 1923. O. profeae is a new record to the termite fauna of Western Ghats. O. profeae and M. annandalei are reported for the first time from southern India. O. profeae and M. annandalei belong to type II feeding group while H. balwanti confines to type I feeding group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Initially, three termite sampling methods were compared in a coastal area of North Kerala to check the efficiency of the widely followed standardized belt transect protocol (Jones and Eggleton, 2000) with a simplified belt transect protocol and random search method. Of the total 11 species that belong to 4 genera collected during the study, the standardized belt transect protocol recorded only two genera and 5 species in 20 hours of sampling effort, while the simplified protocol with half the effort (10 hours) recorded two genera and 4 species. Random search method with least effort (6h) recorded 4 genera and 11 species that included all the species collected in the earlier methods. There was a marked difference in sampling efficiency; the random sampling method yielded 1.87 species per hour while standardized belt transect protocol and simplified belt transect protocol yielded only 0.25 and 0.4 species per hour respectively. The result of the study was further verified in three more habitats viz. natural forest, coffee plantation and tea plantation which gave similar results. The study indicates that the random search method which covers more area in less time yield more representative termite fauna in all the four habitats tested, than the standardized belt transect protocol which spends more time covering less area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]