Browsing by Author "Badrinarayan, Smitha"

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The Impact of Land Use Change on Litter Beetle and Ant Communities a Coffee-Dominated Landscape in Chickmagalur District, Karnataka
(Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, 2001) Badrinarayan, Smitha; Krishnamurthy, Jagdish; Uniyal, V.P.
Human-modified habitats dominate the landscape on earth. There is an urgent need for investigations into the diversity of biota supported by different land use systems that replace forests. The plantation of coffee is one such land use that occurs in large tracts of the Western Ghats in Karnataka. An observational study on changes in litter faunal communities caused by conversion 'of forests to coffee was attempted at the Koppa and Narasimharajapura taluks of Chickmagalur district. Four replicate blocks containing three treatments: forest, polyculture shade coffee plantations and mono culture shade coffee plantations, were selected using detailed spatial information that existed for this area. These included a land cover map, aerial photographs and topographic sheets. The information from these sources was used to obtain a list of possible study sites, the suitability of which were assessed on the basis of field visits and interviews of the locals. Litter beetle and ant communities were sampled using pitfall traps along two transects within each of the treatments. Measurements of microclimate, vegetation structure and litter parameters were made along with sampling for litter fauna. The organisms obtained in the pitfall :traps were sorted out and the ants and beetles occurring in it were identified to the level of morphospecies. Comparisons of the diversity of beetle and ant morpho species in the forest and two coffee shade treatments were made on the basis of the occurrence and abundance of different morphospecies. Cluster analyses of the twelve sites were done based on the distances between the communities found in them. Patterns revealed using exploratory data analyses were tested using quantitative statistical sampling. There were significant differences in microhabitat structure between the three treatments. Forests were found to be more humid and had more equitable conditions than either of the coffee systems. The beetle and ant communities in the three treatments were also found to be distinctly different. Beetle morphospecies richness and abundance was highest in forests and lowest in the coffee monoculture shade systems. Ants, while having an equal number of morphospecies across the three treatments, were seen to be dominated in abundance by a few species in the coffee mono culture shade systems. Generally, forest sites were seen to cluster together in one group while coffee mono culture shade sites clustered in another. The polyculture shade coffee treatments were seen to be intermediate in their community composition between forests and mono culture shade coffee plantations. The high community turnover rates across the landscape suggest that even remnant forest patches in this coffee dominated landscape need to be protected from further degradation. For further conservation of the litter faunal community, traditional coffee polyculture shade systems need to be promoted to halt conversion to silver oak dominated agricultural systems.