A case study on the abundance and diversity of insects and other invertebrates on native and introduced trees in Gokarna forest (Ranikunj)
Introduction:
Forests are considered extremely important habitat as they support a large number of biological diversity, ecological function (Hooper et al., 2005) and also provides various ecosystem services. They support life system of many species out of which 32% species population is occupied by the invertebrates alone (USDA, 2011). Invertebrates are the most versatile type of animal which can be found in almost all kinds of ecosystem and an astounding 90% of total animal species in the earth is occupied by them in terms of numbers (Kellert, 1993). The credit of their versatility can be given to the evolution of protective cuticle, small size, light, developed nervous system and higher rate of reproduction (McGavin, 2001).
Trees support a variety of invertebrates and insects providing them with shelter and leaves, bark, roots, seeds etc. for them to feed on and insects too in turn provide trees with pollination service and protection against herbivore (Yadav, 2003). Hence, the trees and insects share mutual relationship. The number of invertebrates varies with structure, diversity and abundance of tree species (Ryan Clarke Ecology, 2015). The number of invertebrates in the tree species gives idea of life…show more content… The number of invertebrates on the introduced tree species was found higher with the mean abundance of 19.57 than in the native species. Commonly, recently introduced tree species consists less invertebrates (Southwood, 1961) but the opposite is seen in this case. This might be because of successful invasion of the introduced tree species (Ordonez et al., 2010). This could also be because they shifted their habitat to introduced tree species due to it being free from original predators of the invertebrates (Keane and Crawly,