Biodiversity

Biography

Biography: Guruprasad B R

Abstract

A study has been undertaken to understand the distribution of Drosophila species in relation to altitudinal and seasonal variation in Srirangapatna hill, Karnataka State, India. A total of 10,571 Drosophila flies collected from 600m, 750m, 900m and 1050m altitudes were found belong to 22 species of 4 subgenera. It is noticed that the subgenus Sophophora was predominant with 14 species and subgenus Drosilopha was least represented with only single species. Cluster analysis and constancy method was applied to analyze the species occurrence qualitatively. Further altitudinal increase in the population density, relative abundance of the different species at different seasons was studied. Simpson and Berger-Parker indices were used study the biodiversity of Drosophila fauna. Simpson index showed low value 0.121 and Berger-Parker indices represent high values (1.027) at 600 m. Furthermore the density of Drosophila changes significantly in different seasons (F=14.20, df 2, 9; P<0.004). The study shows that the distributional pattern of a species or related group of species is uneven in space and time. D. nasuta could be considered as champion species, as they are found in all altitudes.