Quantitative and Qualitative Assessment of Species Diversity and Distribution Pattern of Drosophila Species in North Chotanagpur Division of Jharkhand, India

Abstract

Jharkhand is a naive Indian state in terms of study related to Drosophila species distribution, despite of being rich in varied ecological resources. The present study was carried out to assess the species absolute abundance (A), relative abundance (R), constancy (C) evenness (Jʹ), species richness and diversity indices like Shannon –Weaver index (Hʹ), which is based on the survey done during 2016 - 2018 in the seven representative districts of North Chotanagpur division of Jharkhand. Our intensive field surveys in the wild areas of the seven districts of North Chotanagpur have recognized 20 different species distributed within 4 genera, 6 subgenra in a total of 2909 flies collected by using three traditional methods. Our major results indicated that 90.5 % of abundance was in species of genus Drosophila and 0.1% of Amiota species. Moreover, D. malerkotliana (R= 0.189) and D. melanogaster (R = 0.176) are more or less equally abundant as accessory species, while A. shillongensis (R = 0.00068) is accidental species. Species richness showed Hazaribag having more species richness (D_Mg = 2.78) in comparison to Ramgarh and Giridih (D_Mg = 1.92 & 1.96) respectively. Species evenness pattern is more or less similar in three districts while Hazaribag has less evenly distribution due to unequal occurrence of some species. It concludes that Hazaribag has more species diversity and species richness as compared to other districts due to specific niche preferences.