Diversity of Platygastridae in Leaf Litter and Understory Layers of Tropical Rainforests of the Western Ghats Biodiversity Hotspot, India

Abstract

Platygastridae is the third largest family of parasitic Hymenoptera in the world. It includes important egg and larval parasitoids of insects and spiders. Therefore, Platygastridae is functionally important in maintaining the stability of tropical rainforests and agroecosystems. Although the diversity of Platygastridae is relatively well-known in agroecosystems, we know little about their diversity in tropical rainforests, and particularly about that of the leaf litter layer. Here, we address the importance of monitoring Platygastridae in tropical rainforests, using data from the relic primary forests of the sacred groves of the Western Ghats. First, we demonstrate that pitfall traps allow us to catch a wide array of representative diversity of Platygastridae of the tropical rainforests, and we establish an efficient collection method to study Platygastridae of leaf litter layer. Second, we demonstrate that the community structure and composition of Platygastridae of the leaf litter layer is different from that seen in the understory of the forests. This indirectly informs us that the Malaise traps capture only a minor subset of the species active in the rainforests. Third, we find that the dry and wet seasons captured dissimilar community of Platygastridae, suggesting that the season might alter the potential host species or host stages. We conclude that monitoring parasitic Hymenoptera in the leaf litter layer of tropical rainforests can provide fresh insights on the species distribution of both the parasitoids and their hosts, and allows us to examine the current state of the tropical rainforests from a functional point of view.

Spatiotemporal effects on dung beetle activities in island forests-home garden matrix in a tropical village landscape

“…They have a thick bed of continuous leaf litter on the forest floor and a continuous closed canopy. They are also important centers of insect diversity, including insect functional diversity 35 , 37 , 38 . The sources of natural dung in SGs include macaques ( Macaca radiata E. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1812), Brown-Palm Civets ( Paradoxurus hermaphroditus Pallas, 1777), bats ( Pteropus spp Brisson, 1762), wild boars ( Sus scrofa Linnaeus, 1758), and sometimes the free-ranging livestock animals, such as cattle, buffalo, goats, dogs, cats, and even chicken (personal observation).…”

Ants Indicate Urbanization Pressure in Sacred Groves of Southwest India:A Pilot Study

“…Sacred groves are the last refugia of wildlife in the rural and urban environments outside the protected area network. Our study showed that the sacred groves still conserve some data-deficient and rare species in our neighbourhood 8 . We recommend increased local participation from local communities, village authorities, temple trusts, and forest departments to conserve sacred groves of India as a living natural and cultural heritage of India 4 .…”

“…Today Kerala has about 1200 sacred groves, that are mostly seen in coastal plains of Alappuzha district and in north Malabar region 6 . Unlike the rich knowledge available on plant biodiversity of the sacred groves 3,7 , little is known about the animal biodiversity of sacred groves 8 and how environmental degradation is affecting its biodiversity.…”

“…Land use change, forest disturbance, fragmentation, climate change and urbanization are affecting biodiversity and ecosystem functions [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] . We used litter-dwelling ant community to study the impact of urbanization on leaf sacred groves with the working hypothesis that urbanization affects ant diversity and ant assemblage of the sacred groves.…”

“…We do not have any long-term monitoring of lesscharismatic fauna, such as insects in our native habitats, although this information may be useful to predict the ecosystem health 8 . Ants have been used as an important proxy taxa in the world to study the impacts of several ecosystem processes and changes 13,16,19 including biotic invasion [25][26][27] .…”