Moina Khan

• Biodiversity Journal, 10 (3): 177-184

  Ahmad Pervez & Moina Khan
  Distribution and Biodiversity Indices of predaceous Coccinellidae (Coleoptera) of Uttarakhand, North India
  https://doi.org/10.31396/Biodiv.Jour.2019.10.3.177.184

  ABSTRACT
  An extensive survey was conducted to explore the biodiversity of predaceous ladybirds (Coleoptera Coccinellidae) and to evaluate their biodiversity indices from five zoogeographical habitats in Uttarakhand, North India. A total of 1883 ladybird specimens with 18 species were recorded belonging to three sub-families (Chilocorinae Scymninae Coccinellinae), three tribes (Platynaspidini Scymnini Coccinellinae) and thirteen genera. Seven-spotted ladybird, Coccinella septempunctata (Linnaeus, 1758) was highly abundant (32.13% of total frequency), followed by Menochilus sexmaculatus (Fabricius, 1781) (23.69%). Platynaspis saundersi (Crotch, 1874) was the least abundant ladybird species. Shannon Wiener’s index was the highest (2.1012) for Chamoli region exhibiting it as most species diverse habitat, which is the reason for the high pooled SW index of 2.0349 from Uttarakhand. Low Simpson's diversity index (D) was evaluated from Uttarkashi (0.1720) and Chamoli (0.1758) revealing a relative increase in coccinellid diversity from other habitats. Margalef index measuring the species richness was the highest in Chamoli (5.0634). High Pielou’s evenness Index was evaluated from Uttarkashi and Chamoli suggesting that species are the most evenly distributed in these habitats. Sorenson’s Index was highest (0.7368) between Nainital and Almora, which reveals maximum similarity in the species belonging to these two habitats. Similar habitats in altitude and climate have high similarity index, which suggests aggregation of ladybird species is highly dependent on climatic conditions and altitude.

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