SPECIES COMPOSITION, COMMUNITY STRUCTURE AND BODY SIZE PATTERNS IN FLOWER THRIPS
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Date
2023-04-05
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University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore
Abstract
Thrips are considered as serious crop pests and vectors or crop diseases. However, their diversity and distribution stretch far beyond. Flowers being richest resources harbour diverse thrips. With astounding flower diversity, thirty species thrips, belonging to 13 genera were collected from University of Agricultural Sciences GKVK Bengaluru (Karnataka). Among which, 22 species belonged to family Thripidae of suborder Terebrantia and 8 species belonged to family Phlaeothripidae of suborder Tubulifera.
During monsoon season 17 thrips species, during both winter and summer seasons 23 thrips species were recorded. In this study a new thrips species, Lefroyothrips varatharajani Rachana and Manjunath has been reported from Mimusops elengi. Looking for seasonal thrips distribution, in monsoon 39 (58.20%), in winter season 53 (49.09%) and during summer season 70 (48.27%) plant species were associated with thrips. Overall, 103 (48.81%) flowers species out of 211 were associated with 30 thrips species. Among them 58.92 % were annuals and 45.16 % were perennials. During the monsoon and the winter Thrips florum was found highly abundant followed by, Microcephalothrips abdominalis and T. palmi. While, in summer Frankliniella schultzei found highly abundant followed by M. abdominalis, T. florum and T. palmi. All together the rank abundance curve reveal T. florum as the highly abundant species (2139) followed by M. abdominalis (1457). Regarding feeding behavior, F. schultzei was a highly polyphagous thrips inhabiting 50 flower species, followed by T. florum observed in 45 flower species. At family level, F. schsultzei was found in 23 plant families. There is a greater probability of occurrence or absence of flower thrips amidst related plant species. At higher taxon level thrips showed significantly high affinity for Asterids than Rosids. Complex and aggregated distribution pattern was found in short lived N. arbor-tristis flowers than in medium and long-lived
flowers like sunhemp and lark daisy.