Species diversity and population dynamics of fruit flies in cucurbit ecosystem

Abstract

Investigation on the population dynamics of Tephritidae fruit flies (Diptera) was conducted by installing “Cuelure traps” in the cucurbit ecosystem, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India. Two species of fruit flies, Zeugodacus cucurbitae and Bactrocera dorsalis were captured during the monitoring process. The population of Z. cucurbitae prevailed the whole season with its peak activity from 9th SMW and 40th SMW which coincided with the peak fruiting period of bitter gourd and snake gourd respectively. Relative abundance of B. dorsalis was more in the snake gourd (39%) than the bitter gourd (5%). The Simpson’s index and the Shannon’s index were higher in snake gourd than bitter gourd. The bitter gourd ecosystem has higher Margalef and Mehinick Index. The weather correlation showed that the population of both species and abiotic factors had no significant correlation in bitter gourd ecosystem. In snake gourd ecosystem, both the species exhibited strong inverse relationship with maximum and minimum wind speed.