Insect community in riparian zones of Sungai Sepetang, Sungai Rembau and Sungai Chukai of Peninsular Malaysia

By

Abdullah, Nur-Athirah
Radzi, Siti Nur Fatehah
Asri, Lailatul-Nadhirah
Idris, Nor Shafikah
Husin, Shahril
Sulaiman, Azman
Khamis, Shamsul
Sulaiman, Norela
Hazmi, Izfa Riza

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2019-09-18

Original Publication

Biodiversity data journal

Volume

7

Pages

1--3

Subjects

Insect community , insect guild , insect-plant interaction , plant community , Sungai Chukai , Sungai Rembau , Sungai Sepetang

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia Pensoft Publishers [2013]-

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.7.e35679
eLocator: e35679

 

Abstract

Riparian areas hold vast number of flora and fauna with exceptional contributions to the ecosystem. A study was conducted in Sungai Sepetang, Sungai Rembau and Sungai Chukai to identify the insect community in a riparian zone of Peninsular Malaysia. Sampling was conducted in six consecutive months from December 2017 to May 2018 during both day and night using sweep nets. Twenty sampling stations (S1-S20) had been assembled along the riverbanks with an average distance of 200 m between each station. The 17,530 collected insects were from 11 orders and consisted of Diptera, Coleoptera, Hemiptera, Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, Neuroptera, Orthoptera, Blattodea, Thysanoptera, Mantodea and Odonata. The three most abundant orders were Diptera (33.84%; 5933 individuals), Coleoptera (28.82%; 5053 individuals) and Hemiptera (25.62%: 4491 individuals). The collected insect community consisted of different guilds such as the scavenger, predator, herbivore, pollinator and parasitoid. Sungai Sepetang and Sungai Rembau were dominated by mangrove flora,Sonneratia caseolaris(Myrtales: Lythraceae), while Sungai Chukai was dominated byBarringtonia racemosa. There was a significant difference (p < 0.05) in the composition of insects between the three rivers though clustering analysis showed that the insect communities in Sungai Sepetang and Sungai Rembau were 100% similar compared to Sungai Chukai which consisted of a totally different community. There is a significant negative correlation between abundance of insects with salinity and wind speed at Sungai Chukai and Sungai Sepetang.