UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI
SCHOOL OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
DIVERSITY AND ABUDANCE OF INVERTEBRATES IN KARURA
FOREST
NAME: JATT ANI OMAR WAKO
REG NO: 141123753/2008
A DESERTATION SUBMITTED FOR A DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF
SCIENCE IN ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION AND NATURAL
RESOURCE MANAGEMENT.
UNIVERSITY SUPERVISOR
DR. MWORIA
ABSTRACT
The study was carried out in karura forest reserve Kenya, to determine diversity and
abundance of invertebrates
in plantation and native forest. Litter invertebrates
were
sampled for two weeks where a transect of 50m was laid in the study area and sample
sites located randomly. The study focused on several divers and numerically important
invertebrate taxa (eg ant spider beetles millipedes) that were effectively sampled using
pitfall trap method.
The survey showed that native forest is significantly diverse than plantation forest with
diversity indices t= 0.004737, df= 14 and p > 0.05. A total of2988 individual specimens
were captured in indigenous stand and total of 475 individual specimen captured in
plantation forest. However the view that plantation forest is "biological desert is not true
because native forest support rich faunal population of invertebrates
though it is not
considerably large and diverse like that of native forest. The survey also showed that
abundance is higher in indigenous forest than plantation where t= 0.022, df = 28 and p >
0.05.
Order hymenoptera
(ants) has greater relative abundance in indigenous forest
where's dipteran (forest flies) has greater relative abundance in plantation forest. A
cautionary question is absence of snails, garden centipedes
(symphyla) , springtails
(collembolan) and safari ants in all 10 plantation plots sampled. The specimens were
classified to the lowest taxon and result analyzed using Shannon Weiner diversity index.
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