Influence of environmental factors on insect pollination activity of Mangifera indica Linn

Mango is known as ‘king of fruits’ because its delicious taste, high nutritive value and excellent flavour. Globally, the performance of pollinators is increasing the fruit production. Insects are the important role in pollinating all flowering plants in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Six insect visitors were observed in mango flowers during the study period in relation to temperature and relative humidity. The abundance of ants, Camponotus compressus 33.78% was high followed by flesh fly, Chrysomya megacephala 32.94% and house fly, Musca domestica 25.44%. The abundance of Ropalidia marginata 0.62% was lower than rock bee, Apis dorsata 3.70% and little bee, Apis florea 3.42%, respectively. Chrysomya megacephala was spending more time in flowers followed by Musca domestica. Apis dorsata and Apis florea are equally spend time in blossoms. Low time spending insects are frequently visits the f lowe r s and effective pollinators. Diurnal activity of insect visitors showed high during temperature and low during high relative humidity. The activities of these insects are found to be high from 0800 hr to 1100 hr, when the temperature ranged from 23-31ºC and relative humidity 75-81%. Chrysomya megacephala and Musca domestica showed insignificantly negative correlation and fairly positive correlation with temperature and significantly positive correlation with relative humidity. C. compressus showed that significantly positive correlation with temperature and insignificantly negative correlation with relative h u m i d i t y . A. dorsata showed that fairly negative correlation with temperature and positive correlation with relative humidity and R. marginata showed that equally positive and negative correlation with temperature and relative humidity.

Author(s): P. Kumar*, S. Baskaran, C. Sundaravadivelan, T. Kuberan and J. Anburaj

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