Roopam Kulshrestha and Nita Jain
(Erwin, 1982, 1983b, Ghosh, 1990, 1994, Hammond, 1992, Hammond, 1999, Chandra 2011, Patel et.al. (2015) and Ditchkoff, 2016).
Great insect diversity is indeed an intrinsic part of the Earth’s ecosystem. They are what make the ecosystems tick, remarked (Samways, 1994). However, the insect fauna of India is vast. In the present study the largest number of species (21) identified was of order Lepidop- tera. In India the researches work of Sharma et.al. (2012) in foothills of Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh; Parandha- man 2012) in different habitats from Tamilnadu part of Western Ghats; Kaneria et.al. (2013) in Bilaspur Dis- trict, Chhattisgarh; Qureshi et.al. (2013) in District Kup- wara from Jammu and Kashmir State; Saikia (2014) in Gauhati University campus, Assam; Arya et al., (2014) in and around Kumaun University, Nainital, Uttarakhand; all these workers have provided valuable information on various insects and butterflies with reference to their diversity and abundance.
A comprehensive account of insect diversity of Sik- kim has been provided by Chandra (2011) where insect diversity of Sikkim, was studied. Altogether, 5892 spe- cies belonging to 2382 genera under 261 families and 22 orders of Insect have been reported from the state of Sikkim. In an intensive study made by Patel et.al. (2015) in Jabalpur Community Forest Reserve, a total of 774 individual of insects from 13 orders were recorded dur- ing the study. A preliminary study on abundance and diversity of insect fauna in Gulbarga District, Karnataka, India was conducted by Belamkar and Jadesh in 2012. A total of 11,318 insects from 6 orders, 26 families and 54 species were recorded.
In present investigation the insects were collected from the Post Graduate Goverment College campus, Jhalawar. Insects live in highly diverse habitats and could be found practically everywhere on the campus. In present study, collection of most of the insects (species) was done, between 1100 -0200 hrs and twice in the year 2012; in the month of Feb.-March and Sept-Oct. Major- ity of the insects were collected from all sorts of plants: grass, flowers, weeds, shrubs and trees. Some were found around and on the walls of building blocks. The main objective of this study was to collect and identify insect species, diversity and abundance of insects in the college campus, Jhalawar. Vegetation of campus was of mixed type which includes trees, climbers, grass, medici- nal plants, shrubs, ornamental plants and herbs. Many groups of insects recognized were: Lepidoptera, Hyme- noptera, Odonata, Hemiptera, Orthoptera, Coleoptera and Neuroptera. They are unique in their own way and have an important ecological role for survival of life on Earth.
Most of the insects in this study were collected manu- ally i.e. by sweep netting, hand picking and beating tray
or by visual search method. Collected insects were trans- ferred in bottles for killing that contains cotton soaked with ethyl acetate covered with lid. Later on specimens were sorted out into different taxonomic groups. All the specimens were stretched, pinned, labeled and left for 72 hrs to prevent decomposition. As some species dragonflies were sighted in very few numbers in col- lege campus, it was difficult to catch them, but we have taken the best possible photographs of those dragonflies. Identification of insects was done at IARI New Delhi and MPUAT, Udaipur. A total of 38 individuals belonging to 07 orders were recorded from the campus of Govern- ment College Jhalawar.
Insects of 07 orders belonging to 16 families 38 spe- cies were collected and identified. Maximum species of Lepidoptera identified was 21 in number belonging to 5 families. In other parts of Rajasthan abundance of Lepi- doptera individuals was observed. The extensive stud- ies on Lepidopterous insects associated with vegetables were conducted indifferent localities of Aravalli Range of Rajasthan i.e. Mount Abu, Udaipur, Rajsamand, Push- kar, Ajmer, Jaipur, Sikar, Jhunjhunu, Sariska, Alwar, Dausa and Bharatpur during 2008-11.
A total of 38 species of Lepidopterous insects asso- ciated with vegetables in Aravalli Range of Rajasthan were recorded, out of 152 species of Lepidopterous insects recorded from India (Sharma, 2011). Further in the present study, number of indentified species was followed by Hymenoptera (5), Odonata (4), Hemiptera (3), Orthoptera (3), Coleoptera (1) and Neuroptera (1). The 5 species of Hymenoptera belonging to 3 families; 3 species of Hemiptera belonging to 2 families were identified.
Likewise number of species of Odonata identi- fied was 4, belonging to 2 families which were cap- tured and identified by Koli et al., in the year 2014 in a study, of south Rajasthan, which explored the diversity and species composition of Odonata.. Odo- nates were sampled from13 localities i.e., Pichola lake, Udaisagar lake, Badi lake, Ghasa lake, Menar lake, Bad- wai lake, Rup sagar lake, Rolitodgarh Wildlife Sanctu- ary, Sitamata Wildlife Sanctuary, Karmoi river stream in Sitamata WLS, College campus, Rajsmand lake and Meja dam.
In the present study, out of these insects, individu- als of the order Lepidoptera: Terias hecabe and Lam- pides boeticus, were found to be dominant (Table:1.1), while minimum was of beetle (Coleoptera) Chrysocoris chinonsis and (Neuroptera) Crolen species; as shown in the table. In Central India a total of only 10 species of ground beetles were recorded (All the species were recorded for the first time from Melghat Tiger Reserve) Thakare et al., (2013) and in our study we have recorded only one species of beetle.
