ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE Effects of different land use patterns on seasonal termite species diversity within the Vhembe district of the Limpopo province, South Africa S.R. Netshifhefhe 1,2 & E.C. Kunjeku 3 & F.D. Duncan 1 Received: 6 September 2019 /Accepted: 28 November 2019 # African Association of Insect Scientists 2019 Abstract This study evaluated the effects of three different land use types: mango orchards, maize fields and communal grazing lands on termite species distribution in the Vhembe District, Limpopo Province, South Africa. The main objective was to identify the termite species found in the area and investigate the effect of land use on termite species. Termites were collected from six study sites using a standardized transect sampling protocol and baiting methods in a transect of 2 × 100 m during the dry and wet seasons. A total of 18 termite species from 2 families (Termitidae and Rhinotermitidae), 5 subfamilies (Macrotermitinae, Amitermitinae, Apicotermitinae, Nasutitermitinae and Cubitermitinae) and 11 genera (Allodontotermes, Ancistrotermes, Macrotermes, Microtermes, Odontotermes, Microcerotermes, Rhadinotermes, Trinervitermes, Psammotermes, Schedorhinotermes and Cubitermes) were recorded. A higher species diversity index was observed for the wet season. Communal grazing resulted in a higher Shannon diversity index (H′) of 2.23 and Simpson diversity index (1-D) of 0.84 followed by mango orchard (H′ = 1.41, 1-D = 0.68), while maize field recorded the lowest (H′ = 1.07, 1-D = 0.48). Macrotermitinae constituted 77% of the total number of species recorded across all the land use types. Edible termite species recorded are important in rural communities to supplement human protein requirements and they provide ecosystem services thus, there is a need for studies that quantify the trade-off between costs (crop damage) and benefits of maintaining termites in agricultural landscapes. Keywords Termite diversity . Species richness . Land use . Relative abundance . Diversity index Introduction Termites (Isoptera) are eusocial insects of economic impor- tance (ecosystem services and human food) in many trop- ical and subtropical ecosystems (Eggleton 2000; Sileshi et al. 2009; Netshifhefhe et al. 2018a). Engel and Krishna (2004) recorded seven recognized families, that are sister taxa to wood roaches (Inward et al. 2007; Klass et al. 2008), comprising approximately 280 genera and over 2600 species of termites worldwide. The seven families are: Mastotermitidae, Kolotermitidae, Termopsidae, Hodotermitidae, Rhinotermitidae, Serritermitidae, and Termitidae. These families may be divided into two main groups, the ‘lower ’ and ‘higher termites’, depending on their mode of digestion (Wood 1986), and produces their own cellulolytic enzymes (Miyata et al. 2007; Köhler et al. 2012; Tokuda et al. 2012). According to Ohkuma (2003), lower termites harbor a dense and diverse population of prokaryotes and flagellated protists in their gut as com- pared to higher termites that lack flagellates and harbor only prokaryotes. The African continent has more than 1000 species and has the highest termite diversity than the rest of the world (van Huis 2017), with the highest Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s42690-019-00081-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * S.R. Netshifhefhe shandukani.netshifhefhe@gauteng.gov.za; shandum@hotmail.com 1 School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, WITS 2010, Johannesburg, South Africa 2 Gauteng Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, P.O. Box 8769, Johannesburg 2000, South Africa 3 Department of Plant Production, University of Venda, Private Bag X5050, Thohoyandou 0950, South Africa International Journal of Tropical Insect Science https://doi.org/10.1007/s42690-019-00081-y