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Island Based Assemblage Pattern and Foraging Profile of Insect Flower Visitors on Aegialitis rotundifolia —a Near Threatened Mangrove Plant from Indian Sundarban

  • Ecology, Behavior and Bionomics
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Abstract

Understanding the association pattern and foraging behaviour of flower visitors is crucial to determine their role in the interaction with plants. To analyse the insect flower visitor association as well as their foraging profile on Aegialitis rotundifolia Roxb.—a near threatened mangrove plant, present study has been conducted among four islands of Indian Sundarban for three consecutive years. Results using first three Hill numbers depicted that, the species richness and Shannon and Simpson diversity of flower visitors were higher among the islands situated far from the sea than the islands neighbouring to the sea. NMDS analysis showed moderately ordinate data structure for island-year–based flower visitor association. Furthermore, network analysis for island-based visitor assemblage showed a significantly generalised network with no specialisation among islands. Five abundant visitors were further analysed for foraging profile, where the highest foraging rate was shown by Apis dorsata Fabricius, 1793 and the highest handling time was shown by Micraspis discolor (Fabricius, 1798). Moreover, all the visitors except M. discolor showed a significant variation in their foraging rate among different time frames. Furthermore, only M. discolor showed significant variation in their foraging behaviour when compared individually with each visitor in all the time frames. Present findings conclude that, flower visitors showed a generalised assemblage pattern among islands. Both honey bees provided excellent foraging on this plant and butterflies were good foragers too. Therefore, to device conservation strategies for this plant, protection of flower visitors must be of paramount concern.

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Availability of data and material

Data are available at Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4684613.

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Acknowledgements

Authors are grateful to the people of Sundarban Biosphere Reserve for their support.

Funding

KB as corresponding author indebted to Department of Science & Technology-Uzbek (INT/UZBEK/P-09, 2021) and Department of Science & Technology, W.B., Govt. of India, for the support (Ref. No. 865/ST/P/S&T/1G-1/2015). UC got financial assistance from grant of DST, West Bengal. PRG, University of Kalyani & DST-PURSE 2021–22 should also be acknowledged for partial financial support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Zoology, University of Kalyani, Nadia, West Bengal, Kalyani, India

    Udipta Chakraborti & Kakali Bhadra

  2. RKMVC College, West Bengal, Rahara, Khardaha, India

    Bulganin Mitra

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  1. Udipta Chakraborti
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  2. Bulganin Mitra
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  3. Kakali Bhadra
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UC designed the experiment, did the field study, analysed the data and did the statistical analysis; BM assisted in the experiments and KB analysed, designed the research, compiled and reviewed the data and wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Kakali Bhadra.

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Chakraborti, U., Mitra, B. & Bhadra, K. Island Based Assemblage Pattern and Foraging Profile of Insect Flower Visitors on Aegialitis rotundifolia —a Near Threatened Mangrove Plant from Indian Sundarban. Neotrop Entomol 51, 32–42 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13744-021-00911-0

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