Diversity And Abundance Of Arthropods At Mbeya University Of Science And Technology, Tanzania

Despite the high abundance of arthropods in many terrestrial environments, our understanding of their ecological diversity and abundance remain unknown in some habitats. The aim of this study is to assess the abundance, diversity and species richness of some arthropods found in grassland and woodland habitats at Mbeya University of Science and Technology in Tanzania. A total of 1719 arthropods belonging to 63 species under 12 orders and 46 families were collected. Parameters such as Shannon index, Simpson index, Margalef index, Evenness index and Sorenson similarity index were used to analyse the diversity of arthropods. Result showed that, Hymenoptera (33.101%), Coleoptera (28.098%) and Orthoptera (17.510%) were the most dominant orders, whereas the least abundant order were Diptera (0.814%) and Scolopendromorpha (0.291%). The grassland showed high species richness, Margalef index (D = 6.930), abundance (n = 1177), Evenness (E = 0.854) and Shannon diversity (H = 3.339) of arthropods. The abundance of arthropod groups between grassland and woodland differed significantly (p<0.05). Sorensen similarity index in both habitats showed 53.5% similarity. Therefore, result indicates that the grassland habitat has the potential to support arthropod diversity and act as effective refugia for some arthropods from woodland.

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