Effects of Temperatures and Rainfall Variability on the Abundance and Diversity of Caelifera (Insecta, Orthoptera) in Three Natural Environments in the Mzab Valley, Septentrional Sahara (Algeria)

Abstract

The climatic condition is assumed as the main factor responsible for development and survival of insects; this investigation was conducted to study the responses of Caelifera to temperatures and precipitation variations during 2017 in three natural environments of Mzab Valley, Ghardaïa, Algeria. A total of 22 grasshopper species were collected, representing four families and eight subfamilies. The subfamily Oedipodinae was the dominant, followed by Pyrgomorphinae and Thrinchinae. Two species: Sphingonotus rubescens and Sphingonotus savignyi occurred frequently in the three sites. However, only one accidental species, Eunapiodes sp. was found. According to our observations, it is clear that the grasshopper diversity was higher in July and August coinciding with the increase in temperature. In such conditions, the precipitation has less influence on species diversity

Keywords

• Algeria
• Caelifera
• diversity
• precipitation
• Mzab Valley
• temperature