TERMITE DIVERSITY ALONG DIFFERENT LAND USE PRACTICES IN WESTERN ODISHA, INDIA

Termites, commonly known as ecosystem engineers, play a significant role in ecosystems especially in the tropics mainly for recycling dead wood from trees. Human induced land use can alter termite species diversity and abundance. Still, information regarding taxonomy, diversity and ecological effects of termites for different land uses is not widely known. This paper is intended to study the effect of land use systems like the forest, pasture land and crop fields on termite diversity in semi-arid western parts of Odisha, India. We observed only two families namely Termitidae (95.5%) and Rhinotermitidae (0.5%), including six genera in different land use sites. The relative abundance of the genus in different study sites showed that 87.09% of the total termites belonged to Odontotermes. Significantly high value of termite diversity, Species richness, and abundance was encountered in dense reserve forest and lowest value of termite diversity, Species richness, and abundance was observed in croplands. Highest Dominance in Cropland was evident from the practice of monoculture. Pasture fields showed borderline values between forest and cropland. We believe that the study of termite diversity across the land use systems will help in planning appropriate conservation and management strategies.