Western drywood termite, Incisitermes minor, is distributed southwestern USA and northern Mexico. Invasions had been reported to Canada, China, Hawaii and Japan. Incisitermes minor may be introduced through wooden structures. In California and Arizona, it caused economic damage of about $250 million. In September 2023, it was discovered in a house in Changwon-city, Korea and a joint investigation was conducted by APQA and other government agencies. The 16S rRNA sequence was used in the molecular epidemiological investigation to trace the origin of the invasion. Five individuals found in Changwon and 18 foreign sequences collected by NCBI were compared. A total of 462bp of base sequences were compared, and the genetic distance was observed to range from a minimum of 0.000 to a maximum of 0.1791. They were most genetically similar to the California individual in the United States.

Drywood termite (Cryptotermes domesticus), native to South East Asia, is distributed in India, China, Taiwan, Australia and so on. In China, it is considered an economically important pest causing damage to wood. It lives in dry wood environments such as furniture, buildings, and structural timber. It is difficult to find drywood termite within a structure but it can be detected by the presence of alate flight and small egg-like pellets of excreta. It was found in a house in Seoul, Korea in July 2023 and was investigated joint by APQA, National Institute of Ecology, National Institute Biological Resources, National Institute of Forest Science, Cultural Heritage Administration and Gyeongsang National University. The COII barcode region was analized with PCR method and compared with the sequences of all C. domesticus registered in NCBI 557bp of base sequence. Genetic difference ranged from a minimum of 0.0072 to a maximum of 0.0557. Among these, the individual with the minimum genetic distance was from Guangdong Province, China.

최근 국내에서 외래 곤충인 (가칭)마른나무흰개미(Cryptotermes domesticus)가 서울에 위치한 주택에서 발견되었다. 이 종은 국내에 정착할 경우 잠재적으로 목재나 목조건물에 피해를 줄 수 있어 시급한 국내 발생 조사가 필요하다. 본 연구에서는 종 분포 모델 기법을 활용하여 마른나 무흰개미의 정착 가능성과 관련된 기후적합성을 추정하는 것을 목표로 하였다. 문헌 자료를 바탕으로 전세계 분포 정보를 수집하고, 생물기후변 수를 활용하여 4개의 모델링 알고리즘으로 기후적합성 예측 모델을 구동하였다. 개발한 모델들의 결과를 종합하여 최종적으로 마른나무흰개미 의 평균 발생 확률로 표현되는 앙상블 모델을 개발하였다. 그 결과 마른나무흰개미는 열대 지방에서에서 해양성 기후를 보이는 연안이나 도서지 역에서 기후적합성이 높을 것으로 예상되었다. 국내에서는 기후적합성이 전반적으로 낮을 것으로 추정되었다. 하지만, 마른나무흰개미의 정착 및 확산 가능성을 염두해두고, 최근 발생이 보고된 지점을 중심으로 정밀 역학 조사가 필요할 것으로 보인다.