Incidence of Wood Boring Bostrychid Beetles in Different Wood Yards at Mettupalayam

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to document the population dynamics of wood-boring bostrychid beetles collected from different wood yards at Mettupalayam, Tamil Nadu. The abundance of wood boring beetles showed that out of 455 individual beetles collected from different wood pieces, 319 beetles belonged to the family bostrychidae. Sinoxylon sp. (Coleoptera: Bostrychidae) was the dominant species accounting 76.70 percent. Diversity indices were calculated for the wood-boring beetles recorded as Shannon Diversity Index (H) (1.34), Species richness (Margalef) (0.43), Species Diversity (D) (3.67) and Pielou’s Species Eveness (0.97). The number of exit holes were evaluated, which showed that the wood samples from sites 3, 4 and 5 had significantly higher number of exit holes than those recorded at sites 1 and 2. The size of exit holes bored by beetles showed that the wood samples of teak, silver oak, neem and eucalyptus have the maximum number of exit holes with 1.1-2.0 mm