The nutritive value of five edible aquatic insects of Assam—Hemipterans; water bug (Diplonychus rusticus Fabricius) family belostomatidae; giant water bug (Lethocerus indicus Lepeletier and Serville) family belostomatidae; water scorpion (Laccotrephes sp.) family nepidae, water stick (Ranatra sp.) family nepidae; Coleopterans diving beetle (Cybister sp.) family dytiscidae—based on their proximate and elemental composition, antioxidant and antinutritional properties were assessed by using standard methods of analysis. Analytical studies revealed that the selected aquatic insect species have high nutritive value and are rich sources of protein (50.03 to 57.67%) and other nutrients (fat, carbohydrate and crude fiber, etc.) along with superior energy contents (331.98 to 506.38 kJ/100 g). The aquatic insect species also contained appreciable amounts of major and trace dietary elements. Phenol and flavonoid contents reflect its high antioxidant activity (80.82 to 91.47% DPPH inhibition). Tannin (18.50 to 60.76 mg tannic acid equivalent/100 g), phytic acid (11.72 to 97.30 mg/100 g) and oxalic acid (2.93 to 5.34 mg/100 g) as antinutritional compounds were registered below the toxic level (0.52% or 520 mg/100 g). The present findings indicate that the selected aquatic insect species can be considered as ideal candidates for exploration as food and feed to ensure nutritional and livelihood security of this region.

Land use change has a great impact in determining the diversity patterns of soil fauna. Adoption of any land use pattern significantly affects the soil structure and its physico-chemical characteristics, which often leads to the loss of biodiversity. Considering the collembolans as the key organism in the indicator shopping basket of soil environment, the response of Collembola communities under three different land uses represented by forest, vegetable and tea ecosystems was studied. Collembolans were sampled at monthly intervals using Tullgren funnel and identified by standard taxonomic keys. Diversity analysis and soil chemo-edaphic factors were studied to establish the impact of different land uses on Collembola communities. Five genera of Collembola viz., Cyphoderus, Entomobrya, Isotoma, Folsomia and Hypogastrura were recorded from the forest ecosystem whereas Folsomia was completely absent in vegetable ecosystem and the tea ecosystem soil was devoid of both Folsomia and Hypogastrura. Seasonal diversity and density of Collembola were recorded to be higher in the forest ecosystem indicating the presence of relatively stable habitats as compared to vegetable and tea ecosystems showing relatively disturbed habitats. Correlation studies between different chemo-edaphic factors and collembolan population revealed that the moisture and organic carbon content of soil had significant positive correlation during all the four seasons in all the ecosystems studied. Higher adoption of mechanical and chemo-centric agriculture depletes the available resources of the soil and makes it less habitable and conducive for the growth and sustenance of collembolans in vegetable and tea ecosystem as compared to forest. Appropriate landscape planning, land management strategies and developing proper methods of land use practices may pave the way for the improvement of collembolan diversity at landscape level.

To understand the incidence of different termite species in four different habitats (forest, agriculture, rural and urban sites), a systematic GPS based study was carried out during 2020-2021 and 2021-22 in two selected districts of Assam. The study revealed the presence of different termite species across diverse habitats in both districts. Among these 8 species, five species belonged to the Macrotermitinae subfamily, whereas the remaining 3 species belonged to Nasutitermitinae, Kalotermitinae and Amitermitinae subfamilies. The genus Odontotermes was found to be predominant, comprising four species viz., Odontotermes obesus (Rambur), O. feae (Wasmann), O. parvidens (Holmg. and Holmg.) and O. kapuri (Roonwal and Chhotani). The other 4 species belonged to different genera and these were Microtermes mycophagous (Desneux), Trinervitermes biformis (Wasmann), Neotermes buxensis (Roonwal and Sen-sarma) and Speculitermes chadaensis (Chatterjee and Thapa). Four different feeding groups of termites were observed among which soil, litter and fungus feeder were dominantly found. Among eight species, O. obesus and O. feae were dominantly distributed in different habitats of both the district. Morphometric studies indicated that O. feae was larger than rest of the seven species.