A STUDY ON THE IMPACT OF BRICK EMBANKMENT ON AQUATIC ENTOMOFAUNA
PRITI RANJAN PAHARI
PG Department of Zoology, Tamralipta Mahavidyalaya, Tamluk, 721636, West Bengal, India.
GOPAL CHANDRA JANA
PG Department of Zoology, Tamralipta Mahavidyalaya, Tamluk, 721636, West Bengal, India.
SUDIPTA MANDAL
PG Department of Zoology, Tamralipta Mahavidyalaya, Tamluk, 721636, West Bengal, India.
SUBHADEEP MAITI *
PG Department of Zoology, Tamralipta Mahavidyalaya, Tamluk, 721636, West Bengal, India.
TANMAY BHATTACHARYA
Department of Zoology, Vidyasagar University, Midnapore, 721102, West Bengal, India.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Shrinkage of the littoral zone due to brick embankment around a pond caused an adverse effect on the floral & faunal composition. A brick embanked pond (BEP) had lower number of macrophytes and entomofauna as compared to a natural pond (NP). Index of similarity suggests that both the ponds were strongly dissimilar in their floral and entomofaunal composition. Hemiptera was the most predominating insect order (96.73%) in BEP while Odonata (41.14%) and Coleoptera (39.02%) were the common orders in NP. Lower diversity, equitability, signal, ASPT, BMWP indices/scores and higher dominance & FBI indices in BEP as compared to NP indicates that BEP provided a less equitable habitat with poor quality of water for the existence of lower diversity of entomofauna.
Keywords: Anthropogenic impact, aquatic insects, biodiversity indices, biomonitoring