A Study on the Butterfly Diversity of Haldia Industrial Belt and Adjacent Rural Area in Purba Medinipur District, West Bengal, India
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Available online at www.worldscientificnews.com WSN 97 (2018) 207-224 EISSN 2392-2192 A study on the butterfly diversity of Haldia industrial belt and adjacent rural area in Purba Medinipur district, West Bengal, India Priti Ranjan Pahari1,a, Niladri Prasad Mishra1, Abhijit Sahoo1, Tanmay Bhattacharya2,b 1PG Department of Zoology, Tamralipta Mahavidyalaya, Tamluk, Purba Medinipur, West Bengal 721636, India 2Former Professor and Head, Department of Zoology, Vidyasagar University, Midnapore, West Bengal 721102, India a,bE-mail address: [email protected] , [email protected] ABSTRACT 67 species of butterflies under 5 families and 51 genera were recorded from Haldia industrial beltand adjacent rural area. Industrial zone hadfewer species low diversity and evenness indices and high dominance index. Nymphalidae outnumbered all other families in the industrial zone with 48% of the total species of that area. Such preponderance of any single family was not evident in the rural area, likewise industrial belt had 3 dominant species but no dominant species could be seen in the rural zone. Results suggest that industrialization could alter the butterfly diversity but it was not enough to make the two sites dissimilar as revealed by the index of similarity (0.52). Keywords: Butterfly diversity, effect of industrialization, evenness, dominance and similarity indices, ecological indicator 1. INTRODUCTION India has a rich diversity of butterflies with 1318 species (Varshney and Smetacek, 2015).These are important components of terrestrial community structure and their loss makes ( Received 26 March 2018; Accepted 13 April 2018; Date of Publication 14 April 2018 ) World Scientific News 97 (2018) 207-224 adverse effects on ecosystem functioning (Altermatt and Pearse, 2011). Butterfly diversity is positively related with plant diversity (Leps and Spitzer 1990) and (Padhye et al., 2006). Butterflies are very sensitive to change in microclimate (Fordyce, 2003).Any change in vegetation structure may cause a change in butterfly diversity (Koh, 2007). As such these act as rapid indicator of the habitat quality (Ramana, 2010) and these are one of the most suitable tools for biodiversity studies (Hortal et al., 2015). Anthropogenic interferences like urbanization and industrialization cause migration or local extinction of butterflies (Mennechez et al., 2003). In recent years butterflies of India have been investigated by several author like Ramesh et al., 2010; Thakur and Mattu, 2010; Majumder et al., 2013; Tiple and Khured, 2009; Sengupta et al., 2014 and Priya et al., 2017.In West Bengal, diversity of butterfly have been studied by Ghosh and Siddique, 2005; Chowdhury and Chowdhury, 2006; Chowdhury and Soren, 2011; Roy et al., 2012; Sanyal et al., 2012; Chowdhury, 2014; Raychaudhuri and Saha, 2014; Mukherjee et al., 2015; Ghosh and Mukherjee, 2016; Ghosh and Saha, 2016; Mandal, 2016; Samanta et al., 2017 and Dey et al., 2017. The main objective of the present study is to investigate the butterfly fauna of Haldia industrial belt, in West Bengal and to find out if industrialization and urbanization have any adverse impact on the density and diversity of butterflies. 2. MATERIALS AND METHODS 2. 1. Study sites Present study was conducted in Haldia industrial region and adjacent rural area (Figure 1). Haldia (22.080767 N, 88.142876 E) is one of the most rapidly growing industrial township in West Bengal situated on the deltaic tidal zone of the Ganga basin, at the confluence of river, Hoogly and Haldi. Average elevation of is 6 meters MSL. Haldia is predominantly a petrochemical industrial belt. The major industries which are Indian Oil Corporation Haldia Refinery, Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd., Haldia Met Coke and Power Ltd., Exide Industries Ltd., TATA Chemicals, Shaw Wallace & Co Ltd., Mitsubishi PTA (I) Ltd., Petro Carbon & Chemical Ltd., Shree Renuka Sugars Ltd., Dhunseri Petrochem & Tea Ltd., CESC Haldia Thermal Power Plant and Electro Steel Castings Ltd. Every day considerable quantities of pollutants are released in airand water. Average temperature of summer (March - June) is 24 °C to 38 °C and average winter (October - February) temperature is 12 °C to 20 °C. Haldia gets 1451 mm of rain mostly between June and September. The study was conducted in an area spreading over 185 sq. km was divided into two zones viz. Haldia industrial zone (22° 4' 4.1628'' N, 88° 7' 35.3568'' E) having an area of 89 sq. km. and the adjacent rural region (22° 6' 30.7548'' N & 88° 5' 54.006'' E) having an area of 96 sq. km. 5 sampling sites were selected from each zone (Figure 1). Selected sampling sites in industrial zone were1) CESC Haldia power plant area, 2) Shaw Wallace patikhali river side, 3) Durgachak town railway station area,4) Chiranjibpur area, 5) Haldia Township children parkand that in adjacent rural area were1) Chitanyapur-Kukrahati road, 2) Begunberia, 3) Sutahata, 4) Barabari, 5) Balughata sunset point. The average aerial distance between two sampling zones was about 7 km. The industrial zone and adjacent rural area were also distinguished by their floral composition. -208- World Scientific News 97 (2018) 207-224 Figure 1. Map of Haldia Municipality & adjoining rural area, West Bengal, Highlighting the Industrial sampling site with red point & rural area with green point. -209- World Scientific News 97 (2018) 207-224 Rural area harbors 33 plant species under 18 families where as industrial zone has only 19 species under 13 families. 11 plant species were common to both the study sites. Rhizophora mangle (Rhizophoraceae), Dioscorea sp (Dioscoreaceae) were found in rural area, on the other hand Ixora sp, Mussaenda laxa under the family Rubiaceae and Terminalia sp (Combretaceae) were mainly present in industrial area. 2. 2. Sampling techniques The study was conducted from October 2016 to September 2017. Each site was visited twice in a month between 8 AM to 3 PM, during normal climatic condition with no strong wind and heavy rains. In each site, two transect 1000 meter long paths of 3 meter width were taken with a gap of 200 meter in between. Thus a total of 4 km (1000 m × 4) transect path was followed during each sampling occasion. Butterflies were counted on either side of this transects. Same transect path was followed during each sampling occasion to reduce the number of variables as suggested by (Pyle, 1992). The number of individuals under each species of butterflies were counted along transects following Pollard walk method (Pollard, 1977; Pollard and Yates, 1993). Average air quality index was measured by taking the air quality data on each survey time following Central Pollution Control Board (National Air Quality Index, 2016-2017). 2. 3. Taxonomic procedure and documentation Butterflies were photographed by a digital Nikon D3200 camera. Some specimen were captured using butterfly hand net and after identification those were released in the same habitat with least damage to scales on the wings. All the data were recorded with date, place and associated plants. Species level identification was done with the help of standard field guides and taxonomic literature of Kehimkar, 2016; Wynter Blyth, 2009; Varshney & Smetacek, 2015 and Smetacek, 2017. 2. 4. Community Analysis Butterfly community structure was analyzed with reference to abundance, relative abundance, species Shannon diversity index, Simpson’s dominance index, Pielou’s evenness index using the PAST software. Dominance status of each species was ascertained on the basis of relative abundance following Engelmann’s scale (Engelmann, 1978).Similarity or otherwise of the butterfly species composition was determined follow SØrensen’s Index of similarity (SØrensen, 1948). 3. RESULT AND DISCUSSION 67 species of butterflies under 5 families and 51 genera were recorded from Haldia industrial region and the adjacent rural area (Table 1). Of these 37 species belongs to 28 genera were collected from the industrial zone and were 54 speciesunder 44 genera were recorded in the rural zone (Table 1). There were 24 species common to both the zones and index of similarity was found to be 0.52 suggesting that both the study areas were slightly similar in respect to the butterfly species composition (Table 1). -210- World Scientific News 97 (2018) 207-224 Table 1. Checklist of butterflies in Haldia industrial area and adjacent rural area SL. RURAL INDUSTRIAL COMMON NAME SCIENTIFIC NAME NO. AREA AREA Family: Pieridae Subfamily: Coliadinae 1. Common Emigrant Catopsilia pomona (Fabricius, 1775) + - 2. Mottled Emigrant Catopsilia pyranthe (Linnaeus, 1758) + + 3. Common Grass Yellow Eurema hecabe hecabe (Linnaeus, 1758) + - Eurema andersoni jordani 4. One Spot Grass Yellow + + (Corbet & Pendlebury, 1932) Subfamily: Pierinae 5. Common Gull Cepora nerissa evagete (Cramer, 1779) + + 6. Yellow Orange Tip Ixias pyrene sesia (Fabricius, 1777) + - 7. Striped Albatross Appias libythea olferna (Swinhoe, 1890) + - 8. Indian Cabbage White Pieris canidia (Linnaeus, 1768) + - 9. Common Jezebel Delias eucharis (Drury, 1773) + - 10. Psyche Leptosia nina nina (Fabricius, 1793) + + 11. Common Wanderer Pareronia valeria hippia (Fabricius, 1787) + + 12. Small Salmon Arab Colotis amata modestus (Butler, 1876) + - Family: Papilionidae Subfamily: Papilioninae 13. Common Jay Graphium doson eleius (Fruhstorfer, 1907) - + Graphium agamemnon menides (Fruhstorfer, 14. Tailed Jay + + 1904) Pachliopta aristolochiae aristolochiae 15. Common Rose + + (Fabricius, 1775) 16. Common Mime Papilio clytia clytia (Linnaeus, 1758)