Assessment of insects diversity with influence of industrial pollutants in agricultural zones of District Sialkot, Pakistan

Abstract

Insects are the most important creatures on earth, due to their multifunctional role in the environment by providing different services such as biological indicator, decomposer, pollinator, scavenger, pest, predator in the agroecosystem. But with the passage of time due to anthropogenic activities such as, environmental pollution, industrial waste, use of effluents for agriculture purpose, the insect fauna has been facing the dramatic threat to their diversity particularly in most polluted areas. The present study was designed to find insects diversity variation under polluted environments (heavy metals) in agriculture fields having brassica and Rice crops. Two different sites, tannery and non-tannery area were selected for the sampling of insects. The total number of insects found in tannery area fields were 2195 and 3753 from the non-tannery area. The abundance of Melanoplus bivittatus (Say, 1825) was highest in non-tannery area and Acrida exaltata (Walker, 1859) was highest in tannery area fields. From the tannery area and non-tannery area, the maximum abundance 32% and 37% was found for order orthoptera. The cadmium concentration in tannery rice crops was 0.626 ppm and brassica concentration were 0.315 ppm. The concentration of cadmium in non-tannery area samples was 0.115 ppm for rice and 0.101 ppm for brassica plants while 0.1231 ppm for rice and 0.104 ppm for brassica insects. The concentration of lead in tannery areas of rice crops was 0.637 ppm and brassica concentration were 0.672 ppm. The concentration of lead in non-tannery area samples was 0.324 ppm for rice and 0.267 ppm for brassica plants while 0.214 ppm for rice and 0.266 ppm for brassica insects. The diversity and richness were recorded 3.11 and 3.525 for rice while 3.124 and 3.913 for brassica fields, respectively. The species maximum was seen in the non-tannery area and less abundance was recorded in the tannery area. It is further suggested that preventive measures should be taken to protect the insect diversity for balancing the ecological balance in the nature.