22 Ara 2024 Pazar
Taxonomic accounts with notes on spatial diversity and relative abundance pattern of horseflies (Diptera: Tabanidae) from Sonamukhi Protected Forest Area of West Bengal, India
Abstract :Haematophagy is perhaps one of the common and of
advantageous mode of feeding as far as horse fly fauna are concerned. Taxonomic
studies of this haematophagous and veterinary important fly revealed a total of nine tabanid species
namely Chrysops dispar (Fabricius,
1798); Atylotus virgo (Wiedemann, 1824); Tabanus dorsiger Wiedemann,
1821; Tabanus (Tabanus) rubidus Wiedemann, 1821; Tabanus (Tabanus)
striatus Fabricius, 1787; Tabanus (Tabanus) tenens Walker, 1850; Haematopota
javana Wiedemann, 1821; Haematopota marginata Ricardo, 1911; Hippocentrodes
desmotes Philip, 1961 under four genera viz. Atylotus Osten Sacken,
1876; Tabanus Linnaeus, 1758; Haematopota Meigen, 1803; Hippocentrodes
Philip, 1961 and two subfamilies i.e. Chrysopsinae and Tabaninae from study
sites of Sonamukhi dry deciduous protected forest habitat across arid zone of
West Bengal. Among these nine tabanid species, one species namely Tabanus
dorsiger Wiedemann, 1821 are recorded for the first time from this zone of
the state. Diversity analyses of tabanid species comparatively throughout the
three season revealed that most of the diversity and evenness indices of
tabanid species yielded maximum value during post monsoon, whereas dominance
indices recorded maximum value during pre-monsoon and post monsoon
respectively. Margalef’s species richness index and Chao-1 index of tabanid
species yielded maximum value during monsoon. Rank abundance model of tabanid
species revealed best suited with log series model (bootstrap value: 9999;
p<0.05). Mau-Tau’s sample rarefaction analyses revealed that present sampling
of tabanids almost approached towards the asymptote and sampling of tabanid
species throughout the three season is well within the acceptable range
significantly (95% confidence level; p<0.05). Moreover abundance based indices yielded maximum
value during monsoon, and diversity based indices yielded maximum value during
post monsoon. This results might indicate a clear correlationship of abundance
with relative humidity and and diversity with temperature parameters. This will
need to be confirmed through more rigorous and long term monitoring of
environmental parameters in future
Taxonomy,
spatial diversity, relative abundance, Tabanidae, Sonamukhi protected forest