Species Diversity of Beneficial and Pest Insects in Home Gardens

1
Species Diversity of Beneficial and Pest Insects
in Home Gardens

• Cameron, Rachael, Barney, Puja, Nathaniel James
  Johnson, Crystal, Christie, John, and James
• Atlantic Forest, Brazil
• SEE-U 2000

2
Introduction

• What is the influence of plant biodiversity in
  home gardens on insect populations?
• Agroforestry is becoming increasingly utilized in
  Pontal de Paranapanema as a possible method of
  preserving biodiversity.
• This exercise explores the relationship between
  plant diversity and insect diversity in home
  gardens.

3
Methodology

• Three sites of varying plant diversity were
  studied.
• Two home gardens and one forest area
• Two pan traps were placed at each site on Sunday
  July 30 and collected on Wednesday August 2.
• Species were separated on the basis of morphology

4
Sites
Miro
Mango
Not Pictured Madeira
5
Results - Analyses

• All statistical analyses were non-significant
  (chi-square tests)
• Diversity indices could not be calculated because
  of low within-species abundances

6
Results

• The graphs constructed were
• species/ sample
• ind./sample
• species/site
• ind/site
• plant species/site

7
Plant species/site
8
Insect Abundance / Sample
9
Insect Richness / Sample
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Overall Insect Abundance
11
Overall Insect Richness
12
Conclusion

• Species diversity of homopterans and parasitoids
  was found to be highly variable between sites.
• Only one site had a repeated species.
• The site with the highest plant species diversity
  also had the highest parasitoid diversity. This
  site also had the second highest number of
  homopteran species.

13
Conclusions Continued

• This study suggests a positive relationship
  between high plant diversity and highly
  beneficial (parasitoids) insects.
• For more conclusive results this research should
  be replicated.