Abstract
The abundance and diversity of ground dwelling insects in an arable land within Erbil Province- Kurdistan region-Iraq were investigated using four different pitfall trap sizes (10 cm, 13 cm, 16 cm and 19 cm diameter respectively). Five insect orders were reported with fourteen insect families. The order Diptera was the most abundant insect taxa recovered (372.9) followed by orders Hymenoptera (328.8), Coleoptera (268.4), Lepidoptera (26.7) and Hemiptera (6.4). The size of pitfall trap affected the abundance and diversity of the taxa. The highest number (450.7) of soil dwelling insects was observed in 19 cm diameter pitfall traps followed by 16 cm (231.2), 13 cm (198.4) and 10 cm (123) respectively; suggesting that the 19 cm diameter pitfall trap size may be an effective method for sampling and monitoring soil dwelling insects of arable lands in our region mainly field crops.
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