Anjana Verma,a Naresh Kumar Mahto,b* Chandrama Singhc& M.Prasadb
aDepartment of Zoology, Y.S.College, Ranchi University, Ranchi
*bDept. of Zoology, Ranchi University, Ranchi, Jharkhand, India.
cDepartment of Zoology, KTCT College, Raxaul.
Received 12th January, 2014; Revised 15th February, 2014
Abstract :Odontotermes spp. are one of the most notorious wood termite which has been sampled in amazing abundance from the bark of mango trees lower trunk of Ranchi city. The termites are not easily visible from the outer surface of the soil sheet which remains spread like soil coating on the bark of the tree giving a horrifying picture.
When the soil sheet is punctured or removed in field sampling from the bark of the tree, a large number of tinny grubs being the larval form of two different species identified as Odontotermes obesus Rambur and Odontotermes parvidens Holmgren emerged out from the hidden soil chambers or tunnel collectively known as bark termitorium. On the basis of numerical counting of the sampled termite species during rainy season, the abundance proportion of these two species has been calculated to the tune of 79.33% for O.obesus and 20.67% for O. parvidens respectively in Zone I (East) whereas it was 78.41% and 21.36% in Zone II (South) of Ranchi. From this statistical analysis it can be inferred that O. obesus is dominant over O.parvidens. The larvae also differ in their shape and size and biomass organization, the dominant species being smaller and light weight while recessive one larger and heavy weight. Further statistical indices related to these termite species diversity has also been discussed in the paper.
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