Abstract
Investigations to record the diversity and phenological patterns of insect pollinators associated with scrubland weed flora in three sites differing in their land use were made. In this study the plant-pollinator interaction network consisted of 25 insect species and 14 weedy plants associated with crop ecosystems. This research identifies potential weedy plants supporting indigenous pollinators including social bees, solitary bees and wasps. The group-level index revealed that mean number of partners for the pollinators varied from 0.597 to 0.704 while for the weedy plants this value was 1.626 to 1.868. The phenological patterns indicated that majority of pollinators showed congruent pattern in visitation abundance. Among the weedy plants, Caesulina axillaris, Luffa echinata and Alternanthera ficoidea showed high degree, species strength and effective number of partners. The findings suggest that sustainable management of weedy species can provide important forage resources to the pollinators in these ecosystems.
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The authors gratefully acknowledge Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi for providing Junior Research Fellowship to first author. We also thank the anonymous reviewers for their help to improve the manuscript.
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Deeksha, M., Khan, M.S. & Kumaranag, K. Plant- pollinator interaction network among the scrubland weed flora from foothills of north-western Indian Himalaya. Int J Trop Insect Sci 42, 1593–1603 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42690-021-00681-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42690-021-00681-7