Diversity and Abundance of Insects in Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti.

ABSTRACT Insects are an integral part of our environment, their lives are inextricably interwoven with human. This study investigates the diversity and abundance of insect species in the study area. Three locations were sampled for this study which were; Nursery, Plantation, and Central Laboratory. Sampling was done bi-weekly using pitfall and yellow pan trapping methods. Pit fall trap which was used to trap ground dwelling insects and yellow pan was used to trap flying insects. A checklist was made comprising a total number of 186 insects belonging to 5 Orders, 7 Families and 11 species were recorded across the three locations. The insects were identified as Acheta domesticus, Heteronyechus orator, Carabius monilis, Camponotus pennsylvanicus, Stegobium paniceum, Lasius niger, Ecitom burchullii, Pheidole megacephale, Rhopalocera spp, Thymelicus sylvestris and Natalensis macrotemes. Parameters such as Shannon Index, Simpson Index, Margalef index and Evenness Index were used to analyze the diversity of insects. The result showed that Hymenoptera was the most dominant order (41.29%) followed by Isoptera (20.43%), Coleoptera (19.35%), Orthoptera (13.98%) and the least dominant was Lepidoptera (1.61%) in all the locations. The Plantation location had the highest insect abundance (n = 91) with species dominance of 24.19%, followed by the central laboratory (n= 58) with specie dominance of (15.05%) while the nursery location had the lowest insect abundance (n = 38) with species dominance of (5.38%). The nursery location had the highest Shannon index (H’=1.649) while plantation had the least Shannon index (H’=1.351). The nursery location had the highest Simpson index (D = 0.7947) while plantation had the least Simpson index (D = 0.6813). The central laboratory had the highest Margalef index (d =1.478) while plantation had the least Margalef index (d = 0.8867) which showed that species abundance and diversity varied for all the locations. Therefore, the study recommends that effective measures should be implemented to manage insect pest infestations in nurseries to ensure healthy growth and production of seedlings.