Fig. 13. Outstanding opportunities for natural product discovery from the fungus-farming termite symbiosis. (A) A schematic phylogeny of the Macrotermitinae (based on ref. 11), indicating the number of termite species out of the total number of known species that have been explored for natural products. The geographic ranges of termite genera and the percentage of countries from which no work has been reported on natural product from any members of the symbiosis. (B) Eleven of the 49 described Termitomyces species have been explored for natural products, and the distribution of compounds discovered illustrated by species in the bar plot. Only four of the estimated 102–149 genus-level phylotypes (average 131 ¹⁴) have been cultured and explored for natural product discoveries, not including metabolomic analyses of complex microbial communities in guts and fungus combs. (C) Natural product discoveries have largely overlooked guest species, including beetles (Tom Murray) and flies,^158–160 and additional symbionts (e.g., yeast species¹⁶¹).