Hiking trails effects on the diversity of gall-inducing insects in high altitude ecosystem, St. Katherine Protectorate, Egypt

Abstract

Wadi Telah in the St. Katherine region of the Sinai, Egypt, is a high mountainous habitat with an outstanding biodiversity. At the same time, it is a preferred tourist destination and hiking area. It order to find out whether hiking has a negative effect on the insect populations in the area, a survey was carried out for the spatial variation of the diversity of gall-inducing insects at different distances from the main hiking trail. A total of 42,317 specimens of six gall-inducing insect species was found, belonging to three orders. Both the species richness and the abundance of gall-inducing insects were significantly positively correlated with the distance from the trail. In most species, the proportion of galled plants was significantly positively correlated with the distance from the hiking trail. These results indicate that even the “soft” disturbance resulting from a hiking trail has negative environmental impacts.