Bidisha Ganguly and Lal Bihari Singh
Abstract
Ecological restoration is the key factor in maintaining degraded ecosystem during mining. Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Chattisgarh are known for rich bituminous coal mines. Ecological restoration process started in these overburden dumps helps to maintain the loss of green cover yet have lack of studies on the abundance of faunal species. Atractomorpha lata from the Acrididae family found in South and Central Asian countries. Presence of these species acts as a bio indicator species that leads to the complexity of the ecosystem. Species Distribution Modelling is a technique that predicts the potential distribution of a species based on environmental variables. It correlates environmental variables and occurrence of species that helps to predict its presence in the nearby areas. Present study is to find the probable distribution of Atractomorpha lata in ecologically restored coal mines areas of Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Chattisgarh by using MaxEnt software. Nineteen bioclimatic variables, one topographic and twelve consensus land-cover variables were selected to build the model. Results show maximum variability was consensus -3 (26.4%), followed by bio 14 (16.6%) and consensus -9 (16.1%). The analytical approach helps to show a greater probability of the species in the ecologically restored area if they are maintained properly.