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Year: 2016, Issue: June
Flower visitors in bitter gourd ecosystem : Abundance and diversity.
Author:
K. B. Tharini, V. V. Belavadi and H. Khader Khan
Keyword:
Bitter gourd, Flower visitors, Diversity and abundance.
The present investigation on abundance and diversity of flower visitors in bitter gourd ecosystem was carried out at the Zonal Agricultural Research Station, Gandhi Krishi Vignana Kendra (GKVK), University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore during kharif-2014. The data on visual counts of flower visitors with respect to their abundance in bitter gourd during kharif-2014 revealed that Apis bees, Apis cerana and A.florea were significantly larger in number and constituted nearly 65% when compared to other non-Apis species visiting bitter gourd flowers. A total of 27 species of flower visitors were recorded on bitter gourd belonging to 11 families of 3 orders. Among the flower visitors, A.cerana and A.florea were more abundant (70.13%) than other non-Apis species (29.86%). Malaise and intercept traps caught very low number of flower visitors. The maximum pollinator diversity remained same between 08.00 to 14.00 h except between 06.00 to 07.00 h and later the activity decreased gradually.
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