Drosophila species in Raipur Chhattisgarh: Distribution pattern and biodiversity

 

Arvind Agrawal¹*, Vaibhav Kumar Tamrakar²

¹Human Resource Development Center, Pt. Ravishankar Shukla University, Raipur 492010, (C.G.), India

²National Institute for Research in Tribal Health, Indian Council of Medical Research, Jabalpur 482 003 (M.P.), India

 

ABSTRACT:

Drosophila flies were collected in and around Raipur district (21⁰15 N 81⁰37 E) during different seasons of 2014 to 2015. A total of 3462 individual flies comprising of 8 different species of three subgenus namely, Sophophora, Scaptodrosophla (D.Fauna) and Anaprionus(Z-indiana)were collected by net weeping method.  Subgenus Sophophorawas predominant with six species and Subgenus Dorsilopha orAnaprionusand Scaptodrospilawas least represented species. The diversity of Drosophila community was assessed by using Simpson, Berger-Parker, Evenness and Shannon-Wiener indices. Simpson index was low at 0.1993 in Pamgarh which indicates high diversity. Cluster analysis method was used to analyse the species occurrence. Statistical analysis revealed a uniform distribution pattern of drosophila species in Raipur region.

 

 

 

1. INTRODUCTION:

Drosophila the name means “fruit-lover”. Drosophila (Fruit flies) belonging to Diptera: Drosophilidae family. Fruit flies are generally found in rotted fruits. Drosophila was one of the first organisms to be studiedIt belongs to family Drosophilidae. Since the time of Morgan, Drosophila is being used as a model organismand described species genetically¹.Drosophila has answered many questions of the scientific community in the field of genetics and inheritance, aging and embryonic development. It is very well studied and highly tractable model organisms for study of genetics and development biology.

 

The family Drosophilidae is relatively large, consisting of 76 genera with more than 3800 described species from the world². The family is divided into two subfamilies, Steganinae and Drosophilidae, which include approximately 16 and 84% of the total species, respectively. Drosophila has richly contributed to the understanding of patterns of inheritance, variation, diversity, speciation, and evolution. Genus Drosophila, with its cosmopolitan nature and complexities in species compositions, is an excellent model for studying the ecodistributional patterns of various species³. Particularly the Genus Drosophila, occupy a very important position among the organisms that on regular basis are used as raw material for genetic studies. Extensively in recent years, Drosophila has become a remarkably versatile experimental tool organism in nearly every discipline of biology⁴. Especially the Drosophila melanogaster continues to be one of the greatest sources of information regarding the principles of heredity that apply to all animals including human beings.

 

Thomas Hunt Morgan, a famous biologist, identified fruit flies as a model organisms with similar genes to humans. Because fruit flies have a similar genetic makeup to humans, fruit flies can be used to examine human genetic diseases⁵. The advantage of using fruit flies is that while they have a similar genetic makeup to humans, they have fewer no of chromosomes only four, which makes them a lot easier to study and as well as Drosophila melanogaster as an experimental organism has played an important role in different research areas, such as chromosome behavior, cell biology, gene biology, developmental biology, population genetics, ecology, evolution, therapeutic drug discovery and genomics⁶. The fact that many genes found in flies have structural or functional homologues in vertebrates, including humans, means that genetic discoveries in the fruit fly can contribute to our general understanding of evolutionarily conserved developmental and physiological processes. Drosophila, however, is much more than just a gene-finding tool for useful genetic model for the study of simple and complex behaviors, and its use as such has given rise to an important body of literature, in which can be found common themes on the molecular, cellular and evolutionary underpinnings of behavior⁷.

 

2.MATERIAL AND METHODS:

2.1. Study Area:

To study the variation of Drosophila and their community, the collection was done during during different seasons of2014 to 2015 in the Raipur region, ten sits were selected randomly. This sits are Indagaon (S1), Palari (S2), Kharora (S3), Pamgarh (S4), Kosukhuta (S5), Kopra (S6), Amlipadar (S7), Arjuni (S8), Tilda (S9) and Nawapara (S10) and Figure 1 shows collection locations. The surveyed area; Raipur region, is located at approximately 298.16 meters above sea level. The area is characterized by tropical savanna climates have monthly mean temperatures above 18 °C (64 °F) in every month of the year and typically a pronounced dry season.Figure: 1 Map of the Raipur region, showing the collection sites Chhattisgarh.

 

2.2. Map Source

Twenty samples of Drosophila Species collected from five different places of approved location in Raipur district region during (2014 to 2015)

 

 

 

Sr. No.	Grid Number	Name of Place	Marking design	Name of Drosophila Species
1.	94	Indagaon		Drosophila melarkotliana, Drosophila melanogaster
2.	20	Palari		Drosophila melanogaster Drosophila melarkotliana, Drosophila suzukii,
3.	27	Kharora		Drosophila suzukii, Drosophila zaprionus indianus,
4.	05	Pamgarh		Drosophila melanogaster, Drosophila suzukii,
5.	43	Kosukhuta		Drosophila melarkotliana, Drosophila melanogaster

 

 

2.3 Collection and Sampling method

From June 2014 to June 2015 flies were from 10 randomly selected sites from our study area mostly flies are collected by Net Sweeping Methods⁸. The collected flies were brought to the laboratory and segregated according to their sex. Individual females were cultured in vials containing wheat cream agar medium⁹. The male flies were identified by their sex combs^10-13. Collection of flies was done from different localities in Raipur district of Chhattisgarh.

 

Flies were identified using stereo binocular microscope.Therefore few different type of samples are sent to Department of Zoology and Biotechnology, H.N.B.Garhwal University Srinagar, Garhwal (Uttarakhand) India – 246174 and Department of zoology, Banaras Hindu University Varanasi, for the identification and rest of flies are stored in fly lab for further experiment.Statistical analysis was done using Microsoft excel 2013.

 

Biological diversity can be quantified in many different ways. The two main factors taken into account when measuring diversity are richness and evenness. Richness is a measure of the number of different kinds of organisms present in a particular area and evenness is a measure of the relative abundance of the different species making up the richness of an area.

 

The Simpson index (D) that measures the probability of two individuals that are randomly selected from a sample that belong to the same species, was calculated using the formula: D=Ʃn (n-1)/N (N-1) Where, n = the total number of organisms of a particular species and N = the total number of organisms of all populations.

 

Shannon-Wiener index measures the value of species as a function of their frequency in the community and was calculated using the formula: H' = -Σ ln pi where pi is the proportion of individuals found in species.

 

Berger- Parker index (1/d) which shows the relative abundance was calculated using the formula: 1/d=N/NMax. Where, N = Number of individuals of all species and Nmax = Number of individuals in the most common species.

 

Evenness-Evenness is a measure of the relative abundance of the different species making up the richness of an area.A community dominated by one or two species is considered to be less diverse than one in which several different species have a similar abundance. As species richness and evenness increase, so diversity increases.

 

Diversity of the flies during a year 2014-15 and of different places in Raipur district was calculated using Simpson Index (1-D), Shannon index (H) Evenness (e^H/S) and Berger-Parker using PAST 3.X software^14,15.

 

3.      RESULTS AND DISSCUSSION:

The distribution pattern of Drosophila in different places of regions Raipur is shown in Table 2. A total of 3462 flies were analysed belonging to 8 different species, with the highest number of flies collected from Tilda.Drosophila malerkotliana, Drosophila melanogaster and Drosophila ananassaewere found to be common in all three regions suggesting they are the dominant species. The value of Simpson, Shannon-Wiener, Evenness and Berger-Parker indices that indicate the abundance, richness and diversity of Drosophila flies are shown in Table 3.

 

In the Cluster analysis (Figure 1), less abundant species occupied the first cluster and most abundant species occupy the bottom of the cluster. First cluster has D.ananassae, D.kikkawai, D. suzukki and D.takahashiibelonging to Subgenus Sophophora, D.Zaprionus-indianusbelonging to Subgenus Anapriousand D.Fauna of Subgenus Scaptodrosophila. Second cluster is predominated by constant and most abundant species Drosophila melanogaster and Drosophila melarkotliana.

 

The results of our Drosophila survey are shown in Table 2. This table shows percent wise distribution after calculating mean values of flies were captured during the collection, which belong to subgenera, namely Drosophilae. We found eight different out of which D.melarkotliana (36.2%), D.melanogaster (32.7), D.suzukki (17.4), D.ananassae (7.5) D.kikkawai (2.8), D. takahashii (1.5), D.fauna (1.0) and D.zaproniousindianus being the least (0.9%) recorded of the total collection from survey sites. On the other hand spatial study of the species distribution indicates Arjuni as home to maximum four species (D. melarkotliana, D. ananassae, D. takahashii, D. fauna) followed by  three species in Palari (D. melanogaster, D. melarkotliana, D. suzukii) and Amlipadar (D. melanogaster, D. melarkotliana, D. ananassae) other seven site Indagaon (Drosophila melarkotliana, Drosophila melanogaster), Kharora (Drosophila suzukii, Drosophila zaprionusindianus.), Pamgarh (Drosophila melanogaster, Drosophila suzukii.), Kosukhuta (Drosophila melarkotliana, Drosophila melanogaster), Kopra (Drosophila ananassae, Drosophila melanogaster), Nawapara (Drosophila melarkotliana, Drosophila kikkawai), Tilda (Drosophila melanogaster, Drosophila melarkotliana,) have recorded two species each.

 

D.suzukkiandD.zaproniusIndiana have different life stages but both flies were found in rotted orange and apple fruits.  Our data is also showing thatD.suzukkiand D.zapronius both are recorded in same study place (table 1), confirming in a quantitative way some previous observations made by other authors¹⁶, same as D. melarkotliana and  D. melanogaster are same found in same place e.i.Indagaon, Palari and Amlipadar. These results were due to micro and macro climatic conditions, collections results are different from the location to other locations. The highest number of flies found in Tilda (520), which is very nearest place from Raipur.

 

 

 

Table 1. List of samples collected from different places of Raipur region.

 

The abundance, richness and diversity relationship of flies collected were assessed by Simpson (D), Shannon-Wiener (H) and Berger-Parker (1/d) indices¹⁴.

 

Table 2: Biodiversity of different places of Raipur Region of Chhattisgarh.

 

Figure: 1Drosophila species in different places of Raipur Region

 

Table 3: Simpson index (1-D), Shannon-Wiener index (H), Evenness(e^H/S) and Berger-Parker (1/d) index of Drosophila in Raipur regions of Chhattisgarh.

Sr. No.	No. of species recorded	Simpson index	Shannon index	Evenness	Berger-Parker
S 1	410	0.4878	0.6809	0.9878	0.578
S 2	368	0.5632	0.9146	0.832	0.5353
S 3	285	0.1993	0.3513	0.7104	0.8877
S 4	286	0.4413	0.6332	0.9418	0.6713
S 5	281	0.4913	0.6845	0.9913	0.5658
S 6	192	0.4999	0.6931	0.9999	0.5052
S 7	323	0.3215	0.5021	0.8261	0.7988
S 8	396	0.649	1.192	0.8231	0.5
S 9	520	0.4983	0.6915	0.9983	0.5288
S 10	401	0.3719	0.5589	0.8744	0.7531

 

Figure 2 The Cluster analysis of Drosophila species found in Raipur (Dendrogram using Ward’s method).

 

 

4 CONCLUTION:

Spatial distribution in a Drosophilae species population in Raipur District, Capital of Chhattisgarh is uniform. Density of flies was highest in Tilda and flies disperse easily all over the experimental area. As per our study D. zapronius Indians is a unique species reported in Kharora site commonly otherwise D. zapronius Indians are reported in colder and hilly areas in India^16,17.D.suzukiiis found alone or with D.malarekotliana. The spatial distribution of Drosophila species have important implications in population parameters and further studies on species specific habitat preferences will be very much helpful in understanding their ecological pattern. It suggested that there is an immediate need to intensively survey other regions to explore the diversity of Drosophila species in Chhattisgarh state.

 

5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

We would like to express our special gratitude and thanks to the Director (I/C) Human Resource Development Center and the Head of Department of School of Life Sciences. This work was supported by grants from Chhattisgarh Council of Science and Technology, Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India

 

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Received on 21.03.2017          Modified on 28.04.2017

Accepted on 09.05.2017      ©AandV Publications All right reserved