Diversity and abundance of insect pollinators of sweet cherry Prunus avium in Kashmir valley Dar Showket A.*, Wani A. R., Sofi Muneer A. Department of Entomology, RTCPPPM-SKUAST-K, Srinagar Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Science and Technology, Shalimar, 190025, Jammu and Kashmir *Email: showketdar43@gmail.com
Online published on 23 October, 2018. Abstract The study was carried out in temperate conditions of Kashmir valley during 2013–2015. The patches of cherry crop were located in different landscape categories, and the maximum insect pollinator species richness of 45 was observed in Budgam, belonging to 5 orders, 31 families and 20 genera. Amongst these, the genus Lasioglossum was the most abundant flower visitor followed by the less abundant genera Xylocopa spp., Andrena spp., Megachile spp., Syrphus spp. and Musca spp. The maximum Simpson and Shannon diversity indices and Simpson's dominance were observed to be 8.319, 6.506 and 0.879, respectively in district Srinagar. The equitability index, Pielou's evenness, Nakamaru's richness, Menhinick's and Margalef's varied significantly across the landscapes studied. Species richness showed a corresponding and parallel increase with various indices estimated. The unequal distribution of species abundance on cherry allow the use of dominance index of Berger-Parker to express the proportion of individuals accounted for by the most abundant species (Lasioglossum marginatum) in each site. The mean dissimilarity coefficients of species richness were 6.57-halictid species (Lasioglossum spp.) exhibited hourly abundance commencing from early morning, but generally the pollinators increased in course of day, becoming maximum at mid day (÷2=0.97, p-valued”0.05%), and decrease in afternoon (1400-1500hr) and the least was observed late afternoon (1500-1600hr). Hymenoptera was the most abundant of all the insect orders with rank (K) one and K-dominance of 0.683 followed by Diptera with rank value 2 and K-dominance value-0.958. Top Keywords Prunus avium, insect pollinators, diversity, landscape, Kashmir, Hymenoptera, Diptera, Species richness, dominance, abundance, K-dominance. Top |