PERTANIKA JOURNAL OF TROPICAL AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE

Nitrogen is one of the vital elements for the growth and survival of many organisms. Atmospheric N₂ can only be used by certain organisms like microbes that supply inorganic form of nitrogen to their host, insects, or plants via symbiotic or non-symbiotic interaction. Arthropods are diverse species on the earth, whose guts are inhabited by microbes that help in many physiological activities like N₂ fixation. As N₂ fixing bacteria ecologically play vital roles, many studies have demonstrated the presence of N₂ fixing bacteria in termite gut. Study on termite's gut omics has also supported a complex systemic understanding of gut digestome that is imperative in understanding the termite holobiome. This review gathers a variety of information from multifarious research which has been done on the isolation and diversity of N₂ fixing bacteria in various termite species.