Importance of protected areas for biodiversity conservation :

Introduction

One of the most conspicuous aspects of contemporary global change is the rapid decline of the extraordinary diversity of the earth, estimated to include about 10 million different species diversity in many ecosystems (Soulé, 1991; Dale, 1997). On a global scale, even at the lowest estimated current extinction rate, about half of all species could be extinct within 100 years (NRC, 2000; Achard et al., 2002; Barbault, 2002; Darkoh, 2003; Wright, 2005). On local and regional scales, biodiversity declines are already pronounced in many areas, especially where natural ecosystems have been converted to croplands, timber plantations, aquaculture and other managed ecosystems (Fahrig, 2002; Brooks et al., 2002, Dosso et al., 2010, 2012, 2013). The diversity of these managed ecosystems is often low, and species composition very different, compared with those of the natural systems they have replaced.

Therefore, early detection mechanisms that rapidly identify changes in ecosystem conditions must be made. Early detection can be performed using a group of organisms in an ecosystem or habitat that describes the response to these changes. An organism that can give respond, indication, early warning, information and evaluation of the condition and/ or changes that occur in an ecosystem called bioindicator (Jones and Eggleton, 2000; Dale, 2001; Carignan and Villard, 2002; Weissman et al., 2006). One group of insects that could potentially be used as a bioindicator to assess the condition of ecosystems is termite (Pribadi et al., 2011). Termites have a key role in tropical ecosystems function (Bignell and Eggleton, 2000). Termites are one of the main decomposer in tropical terrestrial ecosystems (Bignell and Eggleton, 2000), and ecosystem engineers through their activities which help improve soil structure and nutrient cycling (Jones et al., 1994: Levelle et al., 1997). In addition, termite species richness showed a high correlation to the diversity of other taxon groups in the same habitat (Vanclay, 2004), and the complexity of vascular plants (Gillison et al., 2003). Termites also showed high sensitivity to environmental conditions, both biotic and abiotic that exposed them, as well as on ecosystem processes (Jones and Eggleton, 2000). While a few studies have demonstrated that termites are sensitive to habitat disturbance (Bignell and Eggleton, 2000; Eggleton et al., 2002), only a very limited number of such studies have compared the communities living in areas exposed to different levels of disturbance (Dosso et al., 2010, 2013). In general, research on termite community response to habitat disturbance was mostly conducted in Côte d'Ivoire.

The National Center for Floristic (CNF), object of our study is a botanical forest. It was established in 1963 by Professor Ake Assi with the aim of conserving plant diversity and especially of plant species threatened with extinction. Today, in addition to the conservation and preservation of biodiversity of plant species, the CNF could almost constitute an ecological niche of some animal species, including insects, in particularly the termites compared to the Campus area. These two different habitats, the CNF protected from human activities and the Campus of Cocody (CC), a high entropic area have really favored or not the restoration of the termite colonies? To address this question, it was aimed to examine the impact of these two differently disturbed habitat types on the termite assemblages. In this study, the sampling of termites was done by using a standardized method designed for rapid estimation of termite diversity, along belt transects 100 m long by 2 m wide (Jones and Eggleton, 2000) in order to describe the diversity and taxonomic composition of the local termite assemblage.