~ 27 ~ International Journal of Mosquito Research 2019; 6(2): 27-31 ISSN: 2348-5906 CODEN: IJMRK2 IJMR 2019; 6(2): 27-31 © 2019 IJMR Received: 13-01-2019 Accepted: 16-02-2019 Bisu Singh Department of Zoology, School of Life Sciences, Sikkim University, Sikkim, India Jiwan Gurung Department of Zoology, School of Life Sciences, Sikkim University, Sikkim, India Aparajita Chakraborty Department of Zoology, School of Life Sciences, Sikkim University, Sikkim, India Correspondence Bisu Singh Department of Zoology, School of Life Sciences, Sikkim University, Sikkim, India Study of the mosquito larval diversity in the artificial breeding habitat of Gangtok, Sikkim Bisu Singh, Jiwan Gurung and Aparajita Chakraborty Abstract With the growing urbanization, the number of discarded containers and construction of drains has increased considerably in Gangtok which may provide a conducive breeding habitat for mosquito larva. Therefore, the present study was undertaken to investigate the mosquito larval diversity in the artificial breeding habitat of Gangtok. A random sampling was done from the discarded buckets, tanks, tyres, drains at seven different sites during the months of July to October 2017. A total of 247 mosquito larvae was collected from seven sampling sites. The species observed in the different sampling sites were Aedes albopictus, Aedes atropalpus, Ochlerotatus japonicus, Culex pipiens, Culex territans, Ochlerotatus taeniorhynchus, and Ochlerotatus trivittatus. Among the observed species Ochlerotatus japonicus was found to have the maximum abundance (32%). Correlation analysis tests showed the significant positive correlation between the larval abundance and the volume of water (r=0.94, P=0.002). As per the Shannon-Wiener index, highest diversity was observed at Fifth mile (1.37) and least in Gangtok town (0.44). Pielou’s Evenness index indicated that species were evenly distributed in all the sites except Gangtok town (0.63). Bray-Curtis index revealed the highest species similarity between Ranipool and Tadong (0.82). The present study gives elementary information about the species diversity of mosquitoes in the artificial breeding sites of Gangtok. The presence of potent disease vectors like Culex and Aedes shows the vulnerability of this region for the outbreak of mosquito-borne diseases in the near future as Gangtok is a famous tourist destination. Keywords: Artificial habitat, Gangtok, Mosquitoes 1. Introduction Gangtok is the capital city of Sikkim and is a popular hill station of North East India. It has a temperate climate throughout the year with an annual rainfall of about 2739 mm (Census of India. Sikkim. 2011) [7] . As such, water gets accumulated in the containers scattered in different localities which are being discarded by the locals and the tourists (Kumar et al. 2009) [14] . With the growing urbanization, the number of discarded containers is increasing day by day in Gangtok which provides suitable breeding habitat for mosquitoes. Studies revealed that with the extended urbanization around the world, preference of mosquitoes for artificial containers for breeding has increased to a large extent, which implies that the distribution of larval mosquitoes is greatly influenced by human ecology (Chen et al. 2009) [8] . Thus, many of the studies have been conducted to investigate the mosquito larval diversity in artificial breeding sites. Studies have reported that the species of mosquitoes such as Aedes aegypti, Aedes albopictus, Aedes niveus, Culex quinquefasciatus, Anopheles and Culex generally breed in artificial containers (Chen et al. 2009; Adeleke et al. 2008; Dass et al. 1998; Suganthi et al. 2014) [8, 1, 10, 21] . Further, it has been observed that in the urban areas the environment has a major effect on the incidence of Aedes albopictus larvae (Li et al. 2014) [15] . In addition, studies have also observed the existing and disappearing species of mosquitoes along with their pattern of distribution (Asha et al. 2014)4 [4] . It has been reported that artificial containers provide a good habitat for the vector of Dengue (Rajesh et al. 2013) [18] . So far, the study of mosquito diversity in the Himalayan region of Sikkim has been meagre. A survey conducted on the haematophagous arthropods in the Himalayan regions of West Bengal and Sikkim revealed the existence of 29 species of mosquitoes (Bhat 1975) [6] . Similarly, Aditya et al. (2006) studied the mosquito larval habitats (temporary pools and cemented water storage tanks) and their temporal variation in the town of Darjeeling, which revealed the existence of four mosquito genera belonging to Aedes, Armigeres, Culex and Toxorhynchites with