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This Volume comprises 12 chapters in an attempt to bring available information on biology, social behavour and economic importance of termites. Chapters in this book dealing with termites identification provide a review on most updated information of their systematics. Ecologically, termites interact with living and non-living surroundings and deliver a wide range of behaviors. In a separate chapter termites ecology is examined and explored. Termites depend on their gut microbes for digestion of complex polysaccharides of wood into simpler molecules. Information provided on termite gut microbiome and lignocellulose degradation constitutes an important contribution. Termite biology and social behaviour have been addressed comprehensively. Trail pheromones are responsible for the orientation and recruitment of nestmates to the food sources. Once arriving at a potential food source, termites assess its quality using a different set of cues. A separate chapter on trail pheromones, cues used during foraging and food assessment, with preferences for foraging sites, contributes a wealth of information. Emphasis has been given on reviewing ecological benefits of termites in other chapters. The information with respect to termite species as an edible insect and the overall role it plays in food and nutrition security in Africa is quite informative. A separate chapter dealing with importance of termites and termitaria in mineral exploration constitutes a significant step in addressing the economic importance of this insect group.

Termites. --- Life sciences. --- Agriculture. --- Entomology. --- Life Sciences. --- Farming --- Husbandry --- Industrial arts --- Life sciences --- Food supply --- Land use, Rural --- Insects --- Zoology

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In 1771 Joseph Banks and other wealthy collectors sent a talented, self-taught naturalist to Sierra Leone to collect all things rare and curious, from moths to monkeys. Henry Smeathman's expedition to the West African coast, which coincided with a steep rise in British slave trading in this area, lasted four years during which time he built a house on the Banana Islands, married into the coast's ruling dynasties, and managed to negotiate the tricky life of a 'stranger' bound to his landlord and local customs. In this book, which draws on a rich and little-known archive of journals and letters, Coleman retraces Smeathman's life as he shuttled between his home on the Bananas and two key Liverpool trading forts-Bunce Island and the Isles de Los. In the logistical challenges of tropical collecting and the dispatch of specimens across the middle passage we see the close connection between science and slavery. We also see the hardening of Smeathman's attitude towards the slaves, a change of sentiment which was later reversed by four years in the West Indies. The book concludes with the 'Flycatcher' back in London - a celebrated termite specialist, eager to return to West Africa to establish a free, antislavery settlement.

Naturalists --- Slavery --- Abolition of slavery --- Antislavery --- Enslavement --- Mui tsai --- Ownership of slaves --- Servitude --- Slave keeping --- Slave system --- Slaveholding --- Thralldom --- Crimes against humanity --- Serfdom --- Slaveholders --- Slaves --- Colonies --- History --- Smeathman, Henry, --- Smeathman, --- Travel. --- Homes and haunts. --- Sierra Leone --- S'erra Leone --- Serra Leôa --- Republic of Sierra Leone --- Republik Sierra Leone --- Sierra Leona --- República de Sierra Leona --- République de Sierra Leone --- Repubblica della Sierra Leone --- Сьерра-Леоне --- Республика Сьерра-Леоне --- Respublika Sʹerra-Leone --- Republika ng Sierra Leone --- Cộng hòa Sierra Leone --- Xi-ê-ra Lê-ôn --- 塞拉利昂 --- Sailali'ang --- Saila Li'ang --- シエラレオネ --- Shierareone --- シエラ・レオネ --- Shiera Reone --- Social conditions --- Enslaved persons --- slavery, science, and empire --- late eighteenth-century traveling naturalist --- Atlantic slavery --- biography --- Isle de Los --- 18th-century West Africa --- tropics --- British slave trading --- cultures of collecting in the 18th century --- new archives for Henry Smeathman --- Banana Islands --- 18th-century West Indies --- Joseph Banks --- Bunce Island --- subaltern natural history --- history of African slavery --- Middle Passage --- 18th-century natural history, slavery, and colonization --- 18th-century Sierra Leone --- termites