Study on praying mantis (insecta: mantodea) in Bukit Piton Forest Reserve, Lahad Datu, Sabah

Borneo is an island with the highest mantodean diversity. However, information on praying mantis is still lacking from many parts of Borneo including Sabah. More information is needed regarding taxonomy, diversity and ecology of this fascinating insect. This study aimed to investigate the diversity and ecology of praying mantis in Bukit Piton Forest Reserve, Lahad Datu, Sabah. The study area located in the Northern part of Borneo, is a disturbed forest due to logging activities and forest fires in the past. Currently BPFR is undergoing forest restoration for the past few years. Twelve sampling sessions have been conducted over a period of 12 months. In total, 144 sampling days and nights been carried out by using light trap, baited trap and manual searching at six selected sites. A total of 187 individuals comprising 5 families, 16 genera and 19 species have successfully been collected. The collected mantises represent 16.1 % of species that exist in Borneo. Mantidae was the dominant family accounting 53% of the total species and 36.4% of the total individuals followed by Hymenopodidae (32%, 14.4%), Iridopterygidae (5%, 27.3%), Tarachodidae (5%, 14.4%) and Liturgusidae (5%, 7.5%). Interestingly, the dominant species Tropidomantis tenera that made up 27% of the total individuals belongs to the family Iridopterygidae. Overall, the diversity indices showed that the praying mantis in the area was moderately diverse. Six singletons recorded in this study may signify rare or endangered status of the aforementioned mantis species. A comparison between disturbed forest (BPFR) and undisturbed forests (DVCA, MBCA and ICCA) was discussed in this study. The ongoing climate change and deforestation activities may have affected the diversity and abundance of mantis in BPFR but is not known since little attention is given to this fascinating insect. Pearson's correlation analysis was performed to investigate the relationship between environmental factors and species richness of praying mantis in the study area. The study revealed no significant correlation (p>0.05) between species richness of mantis and the studied factors (temperature, relative humidity and rainfall). Based on the biotic data, the sampling sites have low vegetation coverage and mainly dominated by trees with less than 5 cm of DBH. Meanwhile, no seasonal pattern detected on the overall mantis species collected. However, a particular pattern was observed during the wet season between Tropidomantis tenera and rainfall showing a significant positive relationship. Yet, the overall abundance of mantis species as compared to the wet and dry season did not show a clear seasonal pattern. These findings encouraged further samplings to probe into the occurrence of seasonal pattern of mantis species in BPFR. In this study, aspects such as inconsistent weather condition, availability of food resources, predation risk, density of vegetation coverage and size of trees might influence the abundance and species of mantis during the sampling. The information of mantis gathered from this study will serve as primary evidence of species found in the area and shall provide baseline information for future research. In general, Bukit Piton is suggested to be a potential habitat for mantis persistence. It is hoped that the restoration of Bukit Piton Forest Reserve would re-established the area into an excellent habitat for diverse mantis species