Recovery in Post-burned Ground-dwelling Insects at the Srinan National Park, Nan Province

Abstract

A study was conducted at the Srinan National Park in Nan province to investigate the recovery of ground-dwelling insects following a fire event. The study area was divided into three distinct habitats: mixed deciduous forest, dry dipterocarp forest, and agricultural zones. The observation sites were further categorized based on the varying time durations after the fire, spanning 1, 10, 30, and 90 days post-burning, as well as unburned control areas. The method involved collecting ground-dwelling insects using pitfall traps from February to July 2022. The findings of the study indicated a total of 127 insect species belonging to 39 families and 11 orders. Among these, the Hymenoptera order exhibited the highest presence, constituting 39.37% of the insect population and present in 70.35% of all the observed areas. Analyzing the distribution across habitats, the mixed deciduous forest had the highest species diversity, followed by agricultural areas and dry dipterocarp forest, with species counts of 53, 48, and 45, respectively. In terms of the post-fire species diversity, the agriculture area had the highest index, followed by the dry dipterocarp forest and mixed deciduous forest, with scores of 3.13, 3.00, and 2.94, respectively. Comparing the similarity between different areas, the similarity index ranged from 0.45 to 0.70. Through Pearson Correlation analysis, it was determined that the number of insect species, as well as the individual insect count, were correlated with the soil temperature. Notably, only the abundance of ground-dwelling insects was significantly correlated with soil temperature (p<0.01) across all the post-burned durations. These results emphasize the role of soil temperature in influencing the recovery of ground-dwelling insects after a fire event.