Study systems
We conducted this study in two sites in Zhejiang Province, East China:
i) Tiantong National Forest Park (TT) (29°52′N, 121°39′E), which has a
subtropical monsoon climate. The dominant vegetation is subtropical
evergreen broad-leaved forest. ii) Putuo island (PT) (29°97′N,
121°38′E), in the Zhoushan archipelago at 6.5 km from the mainland, has
a marine subtropical monsoon climate. The island supports evergreen
broad-leaved forests dominated by Cyclobalanopsis glauca and
mixed evergreen-deciduous broad-leaved forests. On the mainland, Chinese
pangolins (Manis pentadactyla ) are critically endangered and no
pangolin evidence was observed TT during the two study years. In
contrast, in PT the Chinese pangolin population is thriving because of
conservation efforts and the island’s isolation from the mainland. In
both sites, termites (mainly Coptotermes formosanus, Odontotermes
formosanus, Reticulitermes chinensis , Reticulitermes speratus )
are the major deadwood decomposers (Yi et al. 2006). Table 1 has
further data for abiotic and biotic features of both sites (see also Yanet al . 2006).