Human activity as a factor of disturbance for insect biodiversity - a case study of ants in mango ecosystem.
Viyolla Pinto, Nagalakshmi G., Reddy M. S., Abraham Verghese
Author Affiliation: Department of Zoology, Bangalore University Bangalore, Karnataka, India.
Current Biotica 9 : 65-73
Abstract : Human activities on land increasingly represent a fundamental source of change in the global environment, the most important being loss of biodiversity. Ant diversity was recorded in two mango orchards with high functional disparity, one undisturbed and other disturbed with human interventions. Fifteen ant species belonging to four subfamilies were recorded in an undisturbed orchard and six species belonging to three subfamilies in disturbed orchard. Human activities in the disturbed orchard showed 60% less species diversity as compared to the undisturbed orchard. Canopy cover showed significant positive correlation with the ant species diversity in mango ecosystem.