Introduction

Insects are the most diverse animal group present on earth and show extreme level of adaptability probably in all kinds of habitats (HARRINGTON & STORK, 1995; LANDRES et al., 1988). Lepidoptera shows second highest diversity (BENTON, 1995) and act as indicators of healthy ecosystem and human activities (KOCHER & WILLIAMS, 2000). Majority of species are dull coloured with exceptions of few members of families like Zygaenidae and Choreutidae. Lepidoptera are also economically important as members of family Bombycidae produce expensive silk. Many of the moth species feed on both living and dead decaying plant material (FRIEDRICH, 1986; PORTER, 1997; ROBINSON et al., 2001; KENDRICK, 2002; SHARMA & RAMAMURTHY, 2010). According to Srivastava, 2002 Heterocera act as an integral part of the wildlife ecosystems, indicators of environment, pollinate flowers and occupy a huge place in food web. Certain species are co-evolved with Lepidoptera pollinated flowers, these plants open their flower generally at night because of the nocturnal behaviour of many of the Heterocera, the structure of flowers are only feasible to specific species to suck nectar out of the long tubes due to the presence of long proboscis.

Heterocera are one of the main groups of insects which are well described taxonomically as well as by diversity and abundance (GHAZOUL, 2002). CHANDRA (2011) compiled data of Indian insects in which Heterocera are known through 13,359 species under 78 families. After that, many new taxa have been described and many checklists, catalogues, and books on Heterocera from India have been published (SINGH et al., 2014; KIRTI, 2015, 2016; CHANDRA et al., 2019; JOSHI et al., 2019; KIRTI et al., 2019) and it is hopeful that the number of species from India is more than that at present.

Previously very few studies have been documented the record of moth diversity from Himachal Pradesh. Various studies have documented the Heterocera from Kullu, Kangra, Dharamshala, Dharamshala (BUTLER, 1886; REV. HOCKING, 1888; MANI & SINGH, 1962; COTES & SWINHOE, 1887-1889), HAMPSON (1892-1896) in Fauna of British India, in general Himachal Pradesh (WALIA, 2005; ROSE & PATHANIA, 2004) and Chamba (SEKHON & SINGH, 2015). 17 species of Heterocera were previously reported from Great Himalayan National Park Conservation Area (UNIYAL & MATHUR, 1998). Recent inventory published by ZSI (CHANDRA et al., 2019), reported 237 species of Heterocera belonging to 16 families. However, the authors skipped exploring the Tirthan valley of the Great Himalayan National Park Conservation Area. With this particular aim, the study was conducted to document the moth diversity of Tirthan Valley of the conservation area.

Study Area

The study was performed in the Tirthan valley of Great Himalayan National Park Conservation Area (GHNPCA) located in the Kullu District of Himachal Pradesh. It was established in 1984 and was added in the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites on 23 June 2014. The National Park is spread across four valleys which include Thirthan valley, Sainj valley, Parvati valley, and Jiva Nala. It includes a total area of 1,171 km² and an altitudinal range of between 1500 and 6000 m (Figure 1). The region is highly mountainous and covered with alpine, glacial, temperate, and subtropical forests. Seasons are broad: summer (Apr-Jun), rainy (Jul-Sep), and winter (Oct-Mar). The study was performed in six different locations of the valley (Table 1).

Methods

The consolidated information from Heterocera was compiled as a result of the surveys conducted in the area from April 2018- July 2019 as a part of the Department of Science and Technology under National mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem (DST-NMSHE) research project. Light trapping was conducted in the six different regions of the valley. Mercury light trapping (160W) method was used to attract the species in different habitats of GHNPCA. No specimens were collected during these surveys and only photographs were taken by the author Amar Paul Singh. However, photographs of all the species are provided for better understanding of the wing coloration and wing maculation. Species were identified using various literature ROBINSON et al. (1994), KONONENKO & PINRATANA (2005), ZOLOTUHIN & PINRATANA (2005), SCHINTLMEISTER & PINRATANA (2007), PINRATANA & CERNY (2009), SONDHI & SONDHI (2016) and SHUBHALAXMI (2018) as well as web sources like https://www.inaturalist.org/, http://treenymph.org/wg-moths/.

Results

A total of 165 species belonging to 17 families were reported (Table 2). Family Erebidae and Geometridae was found dominated with 45 species, Crambidae 30 species and least number of species were found in Tortricidae, Uraniidae and Zygaenidae (Figure 2). 17 species similar to previous studies (CHANDRA et al., 2019) were found from Tirthan valley. A total of 147 species were reported for the first time from the conservation area. Photographs of the species were taken by Amar Paul Singh and the locality of each species is provided in Table 1.

Discussion

Due to its large latitude and high altitude, the Indian Himalayas are home to numerous biomes and habitats, which represent a central scene where different elements of biogeographic fauna are mixed. The introspection of the known diversity of Himalayan Lepidoptera is of immediate concern because of constant fluctuations in Global climate (SANYAL et al., 2018). A. G. Butler, a British entomologist described 227 species of Indian Rhopalocera in his seminal publication (1886) “On the Lepidoptera Collection in India”, a large part of which is found in the Indian Himalayas like Darjeeling, Sikkim and the north-eastern part. Walia and Anju in 2005 conducted an exclusive study of Geometridae in Chandigarh and Himachal Pradesh, reporting 184 species. CHANDRA et al. (2019) reported 237 species of Heterocera under 178 genera belonging to 45 subfamilies of 16 families from the Sainj regions of Great Himalayan National Park Conservation area. Geometridae was found most dominated with 96 species followed by Erebidae 44 species and Noctuidae 41 species in their study. Whereas in Tirthan valley we concluded that the diversity of Erebidae is comparatively high. With this Great Himalayan National Park Conservation area is home to a total of 385 species of Heterrocera. Heterocera species like are a highly diverse and ecologically important group of insect species that play numerous key roles in particular ecosystems like herbivory, prey for birds and bats, pollination, and are also potential indicators of ecosystem health and environmental fluctuations across a wide variety of landscapes (ERHARDT & THOMAS, 1991; KITCHING et al., 2000; SUMMERVILLE & CRIST, 2004). Great Himalayan National Park Conservation area representing such diversity of the Heterocera indicating a healthy ecosystem in terms of such factors.

Acknowledgments

We wish to express our sincere thanks and gratitude to the Department of Science and Technology under National mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem (DST-NMSHE). We would like to thank Director, Dean, Wildlife Institute of India for providing the necessary facilities to carry out the work. Thanks are due to the Mr. Nikhil Singh Kahera for his support and assistance during the fieldwork. The authors are also thankful of Deven Mehta for providing Actias maenas photograph.

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Notas de autor

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