Science City isobserving International Bio-Diversity week by holding series of webinars forstudents and general public. The first webinar in this series was organized on“Diversity in Butterflies & Moths and their role in Ecosystem”.
Around 300students and teachers from all over Punjab participated on this occasion.
Dr. H.S Rose,Former Pro-Chancellor, Guru Kashi University, Talwandi Sabo was the key speakeron this occasion. During his talk, hesaid that basic objective of celebrating this day is to create awareness aboutconservation of biodiversity and its importance on account of planned/unplannedurbanization, industrialization, monoculture and ever-growing needs of the vasthuman population.
He said thatbutterflies and moths have a lot of diversity and play a very important role inour ecosystem, act as a pollinator, a food source and an indicator of theecosystem's wellbeing, whereas quite a good number of moth species are pests ofvarious agricultural and horticultural crops.Further, butterflies are diverseinsects found in many colours and sizes andthere are more than 28,000 speciesof butterflies worldwidewith about 80 percent in tropical regions. Theirsurvival depends on nectar that is produced in flowers and also extra-ripefruits, he added.
Dr. NeelimaJerath, Director General Science City,in her introductory remarks said that butterflies are one of the mostconspicuous species of Earth’s biodiversity and are identified as useful bioindicators due to their responsive behaviour to any changes in the environmentnamely temperature, humidity, light, rainfall patterns etc.
Further,butterflies are also called flying flowers, displaying their beauty. Theseinsects enhance the aesthetic value of the environments by their exquisite wingcolours. She He urged the participants to minimize chemical use in thegardensas pesticides and chemicals are lethal to insect biodiversity.
On this Dr.Rajesh Grover Director Science City, said that there has been an alarming risein industrial and automobile pollution in Indian metropolitan cities. Hestressed on the need to include a variety of nectar producing plants in thegardens so as to ensure that butterfly friendly food was available throughoutthe year thus conserving biodiversity.