Termite collection
Termite
samples were collected from Wuhan, Nanjing and Chengdu cities in China.
Congeneric R. flaviceps and R. chinensis share common
habitat in these regions, which provides ideal conditions for studying
the interactions between the two species in hybrid zones. The sampling
of R. flaviceps and R. chinensis populations was performed
from October 2017 to May 2018 in the three areas indicated
above.
Alates of the two species were collected during this period, which aided
in species identification. In total, we sampled 67 colonies, including
10 R. flaviceps and 15 R. chinensis colonies from
Chengdu, 10 R. flaviceps and 15 R. chinensiscolonies from Wuhan, and 10 R. flaviceps and 15 R.
chinensis colonies from Nanjing (colonies were assigned to species
based on the morphology of alates; see Fig.
1).
The distance between the colonies was at least 1000 m to avoid repeated
sampling of the same colony. More than 30 individuals (including
workers, soldiers and alates) were collected from each colony. All the
individuals from the same colony were placed in absolute ethanol and
stored at 4°C for genetic analysis.