Occurrence of insect species along Loduare - Golini Road, Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Arusha, Tanzania

Insects are the most species-rich group of animals on earth, and play numerous crucial roles in ecosystem functioning and the global economy. It is estimated that more than one million insect species have been described and many more await discovery. The description of insects and their colorful body patterns have initiated prominent contributions to art, culture and literature, and they offer great symbolic and educational tools. Most studies of insects in ecosystems of Tanzania are species specific such as Pineus boerneri (Petro and Madoffe, 2011), Cinara cupressivora and Heteropsylla cubana (Lyimo, 2016), Leptocybe invasa (Petro et al., 2014) and Paranaleptes reticulata (Lyimo, 2017). Several species of the order Coleoptera, have mainly been studied in lowland forest (Madoffe, 1993) and mountainous ecosystems (Nyundo and Yarro, 2007), with few studies investigating the diversity patterns of insects in grassland and woodland in Tanzania (Ojija et al., 2016). Therefore, this study aimed at establishing occurrence of insect species along Loduare - Golini Road, Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Arusha, Tanzania