1. Impact of climate change on spatial distribution of insect in different habitats of Himachal Pradesh.
- Author
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Kumar, Pawan, Chander, Subhash, Kanwar, Bhumika, Sharma, Neha, and Kumari, Priyanka
- Subjects
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CLIMATE change , *INSECTS , *INSECT diversity , *HABITATS , *ANIMAL species , *SPECIES diversity - Abstract
Insects are considered good bio-indicator due to their cosmopolitan presence, species diversity, habitat diversification and economic importance. They are important part of energy flow being primary herbivore of the food chain. Being a good bio-indicator, they represents different habitat of forest ecosystem. Their presence in any habitat is affected by smallest change in climatic factors like rainfall, temperature, humidity, altitude, Latitude/longitude. Insects carry out multiple roles within the forests i.e. as primary consumer of food chain, as pollinators, as decomposers, and finally as a food sources for other higher organisms. The class insect is the most abundant and diverse group in the phylum Arthropoda and approximately more than 900,000 species has been described till now and yet many more are still unidentified. They constituent more than 70-80% of all the identified animal species and their existence on earth is recorded 35 million years ago with help of fossil specimens. The untouched and fragile landscape of the Himalayas is in ongoing concern about effects of climate change in the region. Insects are poikilothermic in nature and therefore they are highly sensitive to their surrounding climate particularly the temperature. The present study was conducted at three sites i.e. Chanshal (Shimla), Rohtang (Kullu) and Sach (Chamba) area. to assess the impact of these climatic parameters on population, abundance and richness of different insects species along altitudinal gradient in different forest ecosystem ranging from 1500m-4000m amsl. It was observed that there is clear segregation in species as well as population diversity along with altitude gradient, which indicates insect as good indicator of habitat type. Any biotic or abiotic disturbance affects the insect diversity of the habitat. The study will be helpful in developing the conservation plan to restore the diversity in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2022
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