Evaluating Insect Abundance and Diversity in Organic Farming using Solar and LED Light Traps for Sustainable Pest Management

Abstract

An experiment on comparison of two different light traps in an organic farming system was conducted in J-block of Gandhi Krishi Vignana Kendra (GKVK) maintained by the Research Institute on Organic Farming (RIOF), University of Agricultural Sciences, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India to understand the abundance and diversity of insects caught in a Solar light trap and an electric White LED light trap. The study was conducted for 7 months from February 2022 to August 2022 in 14 days intervals.  In Solar light trap, among the total of 4713 insects collected, order Coleoptera ranked first with 3222 insects (68.36% of the total insects). In the White LED light trap, among 2795 insects collected, order Hymenoptera ranked first with 828 specimens (30% of total insects caught). In Solar light trap, among the different insect orders, Coleoptera included the highest number of operational taxonomic units (38 OTUs) contributing to 45% of the total number of OTUs caught, followed by the order Hemiptera with 26 OTUs contributing to 31%. In the White LED light trap, Hemiptera included the highest number of OTUs (43 OTUs) contributing to 41% of the total number of OTUs followed by the order Coleoptera with 25 OTUs (24%). The diversity indices for the number of insects, OTUs and families were highest in the white led light trap compared to the solar light trap and the white led light trap caught less total number of insects but with more diversity, on contradictory the solar light trap trapped a greater number of insects but with less diversity.