Comparing Family-level Insect Diversity Between Habitats at the DePauw Nature Park
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Document Type
Poster
Publication Date
10-1-2025
Abstract
The DePauw Nature Park hosts a broad diversity of life and insects represent a significant portion of that diversity. However, the insect diversity in the park has never been formally studied. We sought to document species composition across two habitat-types at the DePauw Nature Park. We sampled and identified insects in two woodland and two prairie habitats in the park using both active sampling (e.g., insect nets) and passive sampling (e.g., insect traps) methods. All specimens were mounted, labeled, and databased. Preliminary data suggests that the woodland habitat has higher family-level diversity than the prairie habitat. About half of the families were found in only one habitat-type, suggesting that the habitat diversity found in the park supports higher overall insect diversity. Future work includes assessing species level diversity in the two habitats and creating a checklist of species found in the nature park.
Department
Department of Biology, DePauw Nature Park, Greencastle, IN
Project Mentor
Olivia Gearner
Recommended Citation
Floyd, Samantha; Liyanage, Sahit; Manning, Thomas; and Stillabower, Madison, "Comparing Family-level Insect Diversity Between Habitats at the DePauw Nature Park" (2025). Annual Student Research Poster Session. 222.
https://scholarship.depauw.edu/srfposters/222
Funding and Acknowledgements
Science Research Fellows