1. Pollination biology of
- Author
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Shafqat Saeed, Unsar Naeem-Ullah, Mamoona Naoreen, Syed Muhammad Zaka, Muhammad Ishtiaq, Muqarrab Ali, Khalid Ali Khan, Abdul Latif, Hamed A. Ghramh, Saeed Ahmad Malik, Muhammad Ahmed Shahzad, Zahid Sarwar, Muhammad Javaid, and Muhammad Azhar
- Subjects
0106 biological sciences ,0301 basic medicine ,Albizia lebbeck ,Pollination ,Visitation rate ,Amegilla cingulata ,Biology ,medicine.disease_cause ,01 natural sciences ,Article ,Open pollination ,03 medical and health sciences ,Pollinator ,Pollen ,medicine ,Floral visitors ,lcsh:QH301-705.5 ,Apis florea ,Bees ,biology.organism_classification ,Horticulture ,030104 developmental biology ,lcsh:Biology (General) ,Visitation frequency ,Mimosoideae ,General Agricultural and Biological Sciences ,010606 plant biology & botany - Abstract
Indian siris, Albizia lebbeck (L.) Benth. (Fabaceae: Mimosoideae) has significant importance to human beings for its multipurpose use. Insects play a crucial role in the pollination biology of flowering plants. In the current study, we studied the pollination biology of A. lebbeck with special reference to insect floral visitors. The effectiveness of floral visitors was investigated in term of visitation frequency, visitation rate and pollen load during 2012 and 2013. In the second experiment, effect of pollinators on yield of A. lebbeck was studied in open and cage pollination experiments. Floral visitor fauna of A. lebbeck included eight-bees, two wasps, two flies, and two butterflies species. Among them, Apis dorsata, Apis florea, Amegilla cingulata, and Nomia oxybeloides had maximum abundance ranging from 349–492, 339–428, 291–342 and 235–255 numbers of individuals, respectively during two flowering seasons. A. dorsata had the highest visitation frequency (6.44 ± 0.49–8.78 ± 0.48 visits/flower/5min) followed by Amegilla cingulata (6.03 ± 0.43–7.99 ± 0.33 visits/flower/5min) and A. florea (3.61 ± 0.31–4.44 ± 0.18 visits/flower/5min). A. dorsata, N. oxybeloides, and Amegilla cingulata had the highest visitation rates (18.904 ± 1.53–11.43 ± 1.17 flower visited/min) and pollen load (15333 ± 336.22–19243 ± 648.45 pollen grains). The open pollinated flowers had significantly higher capsule weight (4.97 ± 0.21 g), seed weight (1.04 ± 0.05 g), seed numbers per pod (9.80 ± 0.34) and seed germination percentage (84.0 ± 1.78%) as compared to caged flowers. The results suggested bees especially A. dorsata, N. oxybeloides and Amegilla cingulata could be effective pollinators of A. lebbeck. Keywords: Bees, Floral visitors, Open pollination, Visitation frequency, Visitation rate
- Published
- 2018