Distributional pattern of the larval black flies (Diptera: Simuliidae) of the Indira Gandhi Wildlife Sanctuary and National Park, South India

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1 217; 5(5): E-ISSN: P-ISSN: JEZS 217; 5(5): JEZS Received: Accepted: Suruliyandi Vijayan Government Arts College, Melur, Sankarappan Anbalagan Government Arts College, Melur, Chellapandian Balachandran PG Department of Biotechnology, MHRD, Thiagarajar College, Madurai, Sundaram Dinakaran The Madura College, Madurai, Correspondence Sankarappan Anbalagan Government Arts College, Melur, Distributional pattern of the larval black flies (Diptera: Simuliidae) of the Indira Gandhi Wildlife Sanctuary and National Park, South India Suruliyandi Vijayan, Sankarappan Anbalagan, Chellapandian Balachandran and Sundaram Dinakaran Abstract We examined the diversity and abundance of black fly larvae in five streams of Indira Gandhi Wildlife Sanctuary and National park of southern Western Ghats (IGWS) during post north-east monsoon, 216. Result of this study explained that environmental variables including anthropogenic impact play a major role for the diversity and abundance of black fly larvae in IGWS. The present study suggests that local government should create the awareness on stream health to tourists in order to prevent the human wastes enter into the stream water. Keywords:, abundance, diversity, environmental variables, stream 1. Introduction The larval black fly (Diptera: Simulidae) plays an important role in stream ecosystem and it helps to regulate the nutrient dynamics of stream. Several works have been on larval black flies that stream integrity using immature [1], nutrient dynamics [2, 3], altitudinal variation [4], temporal variation [5], assemblage pattern [6, 4], Diversity distribution and larval habitats [7], Immature insects ecological role of mobility [8], Black flies as ecological indicators of stream ecosystem health [9] and anthropogenic impact [1, 11]. In India, little ecological works on larval black flies have been done: distributional pattern Anbalagan et al. [11], influence of environmental variables [12], effect of tourism [13], genetic diversity [14], production dynamics [15] and molecular phylogeny [16]. In total, 77 black fly species have been recorded in India, yet the biology of black fly species is poorly known [17]. Recent studies highlight the specific investigation or region-wise works on black fly. Although Western Ghats is one of the important hotspot in the world, many unexplored regions present in Western Ghats. But the recent works were done in few parts of Western Ghats. Hence, we made the first attempt on black fly distribution in Indira Gandhi Wildlife Sanctuary of southern Western Ghats. In this study, we focused to analyze the distributional pattern of pre-imaginal black flies in Indira Gandhi Wildlife Sanctuary and National park of southern Western Ghats. 2. Materials and Methods 2.1 Study area Indira Gandhi Wildilife Sanctuary and National Park (IGWS) situated in the Anamalai Hills of the Western Ghats, Part of the erstwhile Coimbatore South Forest Division in Coimbatore District of the state of. Indira Gandhi Wildlife Sanctuary covers Km 2. The altitude of study area ranged from 1345 ft to 3623 ft above mean sea level. The annual rainfall varies from 8 45 mm. This sanctuary has a source of several rivers and many large dams (Aaliyar dam and Sholayar dam). The forest cover is very dense and it is very thrilling and exciting to be exploring these dark dense forests. The sampling was done in five major easily accessible streams of IGWS: Thirumoorthy falls (site 1), Monkey falls (site 2), Sirkundra stream (site 3), Nadumala stream (site 4) and Pudhuthottam stream (site 5) (Fig. 1). This study area was conducted on December-216. ~ 112 ~

2 2.2 Sampling Methods A pilot survey was done in IGWS during north-east postmonsoonal period (December, 216). In each stream, three samples were taken at 1m 2 area. Larvae and pupae were collected manually from leaf litters, woody debris and polythene sheet submerged in water. The immature pupa were recognized and removed from substrates with a fine brush and forceps for rearing. Pupae were placed on wet filter paper in a small plastic container and kept for one or two days until adult emergence. The specimens were preserved in 8-9% ethanol. Physicochemical parameters were estimated by using portable water analysis tester (PCS Testr 35, Eutech instruments, India). Altitude, latitude and longitude were taken by GPS (Global Positioning System: Garmin-12 maps). 2.3 Statistical analysis Statistical analyses of Karl Pearson Correlation co-efficient, One-way ANOVA, Alpha Diversity indices, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Abundance measures were carried out by statistical software PAST version 3.15b and GraphPad Prism version 7.3. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was computed for measuring the relationship between blackfly abundance and physico-chemical variables arriving during the five streams for post-monsoonal season. 3. Results The physical, chemical and stream parameters of five streams are listed in Table.1. Air as well as water temperature were decreased with increasing of elevation. Dissolved oxygen was low in Thirumoorthy falls and Sirukundra streams, and high in Pudhuthottam stream. The lowest conductivity was found in Monkey falls stream and high in Thirumoorthy falls stream. Thirumoorthy falls stream had a higher total dissolved solids followed by Monkey falls, Sirukundra, Nadumala and Pudhuthottam streams (Fig. 2). Stream substrates were highly diversified in each stream. Leaf litters, woody debris and human waste materials were occurred along with native stream substrates. The relative measures of altitudinal and black fly abundance were calculated from five streams of IGWS. The larvae from the subgenus were constituted lofty (83.47%) rather than and their percentage was high in leaf litter accumulation at Thirumoorthy falls (Table 2). When compared blackflies larval abundance from low altitudinal stream to high altitudinal stream, the greatest percentage of blackflies was occurred in low altitudinal stream of Thirumoorthy falls (75.84%), but this pattern was greatly changed and their proportion (5.94%) decreased in highaltitude Pudhuthottam stream (3564 ft). Abundance of blackfly larvae and environmental variables were compared by Linear r (Pearson) correlation co-efficient and these results indicated that water depth, ph and salinity had high correlation co-efficient value (γ =.96871,.755,.733) with abundance of blackfly (Table 3). The results of one-way ANOVA revealed that the relative abundance of black flies were significant (F = 2.68, p =1) between the sampling streams. The alpha diversity indices of Shannon and Simpson were high in Pudhuthottam stream and low in Nadumala stream (Table 4). Hierarchical cluster dendrogram was depicted that Thirumoorthy and Sirukundra streams formed high similarity cluster followed by Nadumala and Pudhuthottam stream and Monkey falls (Fig. 3). Principal Component Analysis (PCA) indicated that physical parameters of latitude, longitude, water temperature and elevation influence the abundance of black fly larvae (Table 5; Fig. 4). Table 1: Physico-chemical parameters for five different streams of Indira Gandhi Wildlife Sanctuary and National Park. Parameters Thirumoorthy falls Monkey falls Sirukundra stream Nadumala stream Pudhuthottam stream Latitude (N) 1º27'14.1'' 1º27'24.'' 1º19'1.'' 1º19'6.4'' 1º2'41.3'' Longitude (E) 77º9'5.8'' 76º58'24.7'' 76º57'1.9'' 76º57'71.1'' 76º58'4.7'' Elevation (ft) Air temperature (ºC) Water temperature (ºC) Dissolved oxygen (mg/l) ph Conductivity (µsec) Total dissolved solids (ppt) Stream order Stream width (m) Stream depth (cm) Current velocity (sec/m) No. Riparian species/m Canopy cover (%) Bed rock (%) 2 1 Boulders (%) Cobbles (%) 8 Pebbles (%) 8 3 Sand (%) 2 Mud/silt (%) ~ 1121 ~

3 Table 2: Substrate colonization of immature black fly larvae in five streams Indira Gandhi Wildlife Sanctuary and National Park. Sampling sites Specie Site 1 Site 2 Site 3 Site 4 Site 5 Bedrock (%) Boulders (%) Types of substrate (% colonization) Cobbles Pebbles Leaf litter Woody (%) (%) (%) debris (%) Table 3: Correlation coefficient value between abundance of black fly and environmental variables. Parameters Correlation Value Elevation Air temperature Water temperature ph Conductivity (µsec).7963 Total dissolved solids (ppt) Salinity (ppm) Dissolved oxygen (mglˉ1) Stream order Stream width (m) Water depth (cm) Current velocity (sec/m) Canopy cover (%) Table 4: Diversity indices for immature black fly of five streams. Polythene sheet (%) Sampling sites Taxa s Simpson 1-D Shannon H Evenness e^h/s Margalef Thirumoorthy falls Monkey falls Sirukundra stream Nadumala stream Pudhuthottam stream Table 5: Result of PCA for environmental variables and black fly abundance. Parameters PC 1 PC 2 PC 3 Latitude (N) Longitude (E) Elevation (ft) Air temperature (ºC) Water temperature (ºC) ph Conductivity (µsec) Total dissolved solids (ppt) Salinity Dissolved oxygen (mg/l) Stream order Stream width (m) Stream depth (cm) Current velocity (sec/m) Canopy cover (%) Bed rock (%) Boulders (%) Cobbles (%) Pebbles (%) Sand (%) Mud/silt (%) No. Riparian species/m Bed rock (no.) Boulders (no.) Cobbles (no.) Pebbles (no.) Leaf litters (no.) Woody debris (no.) Waste cloths (no.) Polythene sheet (no.) Snacks cover (no.) Others (no.) Eigen value % variance ~ 1122 ~

4 Fig 1: Map showing the sampling sites of Indira Gandhi Wildlife Sanctuary and National Park of Western Ghats, South India. Fig 2: The seven major environmental variables in five streams of Indira Gandhi Wildlife Sanctuary and National Park. ~ 1123 ~

5 Fig 3: Dendrogram showing the similarity of black fly distribution between sampling sites. Fig 4: Biplot of Principal Component Analysis for environmental variables and distribution of blackfly larvae. 4. Discussion In the present study, the subgenus larvae had the highest percentage. It may be due to the elevational impact or temperature [11] reported that immature was abundant in high elevational stream. Further, black fly abundance was greatly in leaf litter than the other substrates, because nutrients and surface regions of leaf litter may influence the attraction of black fly than the native stream ~ 1124 ~ substrates. The same pattern was observed in Nigera streams that larvae and pupae belonging to black fly species colonized three substrates: trailing leaves, submerged dead leaves and wood [18]. Allocthonous coarse particulate organic matter (leaf litter and woody debris) and its attached microbes may have an important influence on the abundance and distribution of stream insects [19]. More comparisons of aquatic insect colonization of natural and artificial leaf litter indicate that

6 food value rather than substrate or microhabitat, is the primary determinant of leaf pack use [2, 21]. Clearly, it is important to compare insect colonization and exploitation of different types of leaf litter as food or microhabitat [22]. The abundance of black fly was high in low altitudinal stream of Thirumoorthy falls. This is due to Thirumoorthy falls stream is a famous tourist spot and the high human discharges found in the stream. Similar report was found in aquatic insect distribution in south Indian streams [11]. The high diversity was observed in high altitudinal stream of Pudhuthottam. It is evident that the genetic heterogeneity of band pattern of S. gravelyi steadily increased from low elevation to high elevation and speciation possibility was done in high elevational site [23]. The high similarity of black fly larvae was formed between Thirumoorthy and Sirukundra streams. This pattern may be the anthropogenic pressure that these two streams are tourist spots in IGWS. The multivariate analysis of PCA highlights that latitude, longitude, water temperature and elevation factors alter the abundance of black fly larvae in IGWS. Yacob et al. [4] explained that pre-imaginal black fly has habitat and site-specific and their abundance is related the altitudinal gradient. 5. Conclusion The present conclude that environmental variables including anthropogenic impact play a major role for the diversity and abundance of black fly larvae in five streams of IGWS. 6. Acknowledgement This work was supported by the Science & Engineering Research Board (SERB), New Delhi (Ref. No: ECR/216/191/LS) 7. References 1. Docile TN, Figuriro R, Gil-Azevedo LH, Nessimian JL. Water pollution and distribution of the black fly (Diptera: Simuliidae) in the Atlantic, Brazil. Biologia Tropical. 215; 63(3): Hershey AE, Merritt RW, Miller MC. 2 Insect Diversity, Life History, and Tropic Dynamics in Arctic Streams, with Particular Emphasis on Black Flies (Diptera: Simuliidae). 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