Diversity and abundance of some insect fauna in Bhawal and Madhupur Sal forests of Bangladesh

Abstract

The abundance and diversity of insect fauna were studied from two deciduous sal forests of Bhawal and Madhupur located at central part of Bangladesh. A total of 544 individuals of insects of 61 species belonging to 54 genera, 33 families and 11 orders have been identified with Hymenoptera (31%) as the dominant order in species richness followed by Coleoptera (13%), Orthoptera (11%), Diptera (10%), Hemiptera (8%), Lepidoptera (8%), Odonata (8%), Homoptera (3%), Isoptera (3%), Neuroptera (3%) and Dictyoptera (2%). Bhawal scores higher Shannon-Weaver diversity index (Hʹ=3.725) compared to Madhupur (Hʹ=3.340). The Bhawal Sal Forest with the collected 341 (63%) insects and identified 53 (59%) species belonging to 10 orders was found more diverse in species richness than the Madhupur Sal Forest with 37(41%) species belonging to 11 orders identified from the collected 203 (37%) insect samples. Insects of the order Neuroptera were not recorded from Bhawal. Off the 61 species, 29(48%) species were common in both the forests, 24(39%) species were exclusive to Bhawal and eight (13%) species were exclusive to the Madhupur Sal Forest. Apis cerana of Hymenoptera was identified as the dominant species having 9% of the identified samples followed by dipteran species Musca domestica with 6% of the samples. Among the insect species 30 (49%) species were found playing beneficial role as biological control agents, predators, pollinators, honey producers and also organic debris recycler. On the other hand, 31(51%) species were found to be harmful causing damage to forest vegetation as well as human and wildlife at variable degrees. J. Biodivers. Conserv. Bioresour. Manag. 2021, 7(1): 11-24

A preliminary checklist of moths (Lepidoptera: Heterocera) of Jahangirnagar university campus, Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh

“…Recently, [22] reported a checklist of moth fauna of Rajshahi University campus with 29 species under 8 families. Only four species of moth from four families; Saturniidae, Noctuidae, Geometridae and Crambidae were recorded from a forest of Bangladesh [3] . Compared to all of these reports 17 moth species were common to our findings and rest of the species are new for the moth inventory of Bangladesh.…”

“…Even though, a good number of authors [14,26,28,4,5,16,20,7,8,29] reported the species diversity and seasonal abundance of butterfly fauna of different parts in Bangladesh including Jahangirnagar University campus. In our country, very few sporadic surveys have been conducted to record the species diversity of moths [17,23,22,3] . The moth diversity of Jahangirnagar University (JU) campus is completely unexplored.…”

Vision on biodiversity: Indigenous techniques of biodiversity assessment of butterflies in some forests of Bangladesh

“…Recently, some research works have been carried out to provide data in the field conditions. The investigations were done in some forest areas (Bhawal and Madhupur forests) near the Dhaka city which produced harmonious supports to the present works of the "population census" (Chowdhury 2020, Chowdhury andBashar 2021). The above statements (Table 1 and Table 2) detail the "vulnerability status" of butterflies in Bangladesh context.…”