Diversity of some insect fauna in different coastal habitats of Tamil Nadu, southeast coast of India

Abstract

We investigated the biodiversity of some insect fauna in different coastal habitat of Tamil Nadu, Southeast coast of India and also tried to clarify the relationship between surrounding coastal environmental ecosystem of three coastal habitats (station-I estuarine complex, station-II mangrove area and station-III sandy beach), in order to, eventually, contribute to biodiversity conservation as well as to management of coastal habitat in India. Insect were collected from the three sites, from January 2008 to December 2008. Studies regarding diversity of insects available on coastal environments are very few. A total of 929 insects belong to 23 families and 6 orders were recorded from the 3 sites. Among them, 487 species are from station-II 259 species from station-I and 183 species are from station-III were recorded. Statistical tools PRIMER (Ver. 6.1.11) were employed to find the species diversity, richness and evenness were calculated.

Keywords

• Coastal environment
• Diversity
• Evenness
• Insects
• Richness