Abundance and Diversity of Insects on the Juniata College Campus

• Conner Frey

  Juniata College

  Author

• Nikole Koenig

  Juniata College

  Author

• Caroline Letrent

  Juniata College

  Author

• Marie-Claire Ndugu

  Juniata College

  Author

• Nicole Piccioni

  Juniata College

  Author

• Gavin Steward

  Juniata College

  Author

On planet earth, insects make up the largest percentage of organisms in the world. They are the most diverse group of animals with over a million species and counting. With so many species to take into account within Pennsylvania, our study wanted to identify and compare insect species abundance and diversity in three environmental types: tall trees, low shrubs, and a combination of both. Capture attempts at the three environmental types occurred in managed (Juniata College Campus) vs unmanaged (Peace Chapel) locations to see if this had an effect on diversity and abundance. We hypothesized that the combination environment at the unmanaged location would have the largest abundance and diversity. For every specimen collected the location and environment type they were found was recorded and insects were later identified after collection attempts. Once all raw data was collected, we conducted analyses to determine how abundance and diversity differs in our field sites. We found several different outcomes for the insects in our sites. The low brush habitat on campus had the lowest diversity. The most diversity in insects was found in the tall tree and low shrub environment at Juniata College along with the low shrub environment at the Peace Chapel. For abundance, the combination habitat at the Peace Chapel was the least abundant and the most abundance of insects was found to be in the low shrub environment on campus. Our findings do not support our hypothesis, but they were not statistically significant.

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