By Opeyemi Adedoja and Temitope Kehinde
Abstract
Insect diversity loss in terrestrial ecosystems is driven by land use intensification, habitat loss and other anthropogenic activities and environmental stressors. Availability of critical resources such as nectar and pollen-providing plants are crucial to the success of many anthophilous insect taxa. This could result in differences in the abundance, species richness and species diversity of anthophilous insects between seasons and across different land use types. This study investigated the effect of land use and seasonal variation on the species richness, diversity and abundance of anthophilous insects sampled on three land use types grasslands, agricultural lands and secondary forests on Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife for 12 months covering the dry and wet seasons. Higher abundance was recorded in secondary forest and grassland land use types compared to agricultural land. There was no significant difference in the species richness and diversity of anthophilous insects among the land use types. The effect of seasonal variation was more pronounced on grassland and agricultural land compared to secondary forest. Flowering plant abundance and species richness positively influenced the abundance, species richness and diversity of anthophilous insects. This supports the notion that land use change and seasonal variations influences the availability of flowering plants which directly affects the abundance, species richness and diversity of anthophilous insects.