Department of Entomology, College of Agriculture, G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, 263145
*Email: mayankkumar1411@gmail.com (corresponding author)
Online published on 24 September, 2020.
White grubs (Scarabaeidae) are a diverse group of insects. Their diversity was explored from March to September 2018 at Pantnagar Terai region of Kumaon, Uttarakhand. The results revealed 23 species under 12 genera and four subfamilies viz., Melolonthinae, Rutelinae, Dynastinae and Cetoniinae. The diversity indices of species abundance and richness worked out revealed the excellent diversity at the Horticulture Research Center (HRC) (D= 0.914, S=3.26) followed by Livestock Research Center (LRC) (D=0.913, S=3.245) and Crop Research Center (CRC) (D=0.887, S=3.138). Species evenness was observed to be maximum at LRC (E=0.863) as compared to HRC (E=0.859) and CRC (E=0.798). The Bray-Curtis distance showed 79.7 and 80.0 similarity of CRC with HRC and LRC, respectively, while HRC (0.918) showed similarities with LRC. Diversity profiling curve proved that there was unique similarity in species collected from HRC and LRC in comparison to CRC.
Scarabaeidae, Terai, Kumaon, Diversity indices, Abundance curves, Whittaker rank, Fisher plot, Diversity profiling, Cluster analysis
