Impact of riparian land use on stream insects of Kudremukh National Park, Karnataka state, India

Subramanian, KA and Sivaramakrishnan, KG and Gadgil, Madhav (2005) Impact of riparian land use on stream insects of Kudremukh National Park, Karnataka state, India. In: Journal of Insect Science, 5 .

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Abstract

The impact of riparian land use on the stream insect communities was studied at Kudremukh National Park located within Western Ghats, a tropical biodiversity hotspot in India. The diversity and community composition of stream insects varied across streams with different riparian land use types. The rarefied family and generic richness was highest in streams with natural semi evergreen forests as riparian vegetation. However, when the streams had human habitations and areca nut plantations as riparian land use type, the rarefied richness was higher than that of streams with natural evergreen forests and grasslands. The streams with scrub lands and iron ore mining as the riparian land use had the lowest rarefied richness. Within a landscape, the streams with the natural riparian vegetation had similar community composition. However, streams with natural grasslands as the riparian vegetation, had low diversity and the community composition was similar to those of paddy fields. We discuss how stream insect assemblages differ due to varied riparian land use patterns, reflecting fundamental alterations in the functioning of stream ecosystems. This understanding is vital to conserve, manage and restore tropical riverine ecosystems.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	Journal of Insect Science
Publisher:	Bioone
Additional Information:	Copyright of this article belongs to Bioone.
Keywords:	Aquatic insects,Western Ghats,tropical streams,ecological communities,deforestation, mining
Department/Centre:	Division of Biological Sciences > Centre for Ecological Sciences
Date Deposited:	27 Apr 2010 12:14
Last Modified:	19 Sep 2010 06:00
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/27312

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