Bee Efficiency in Action: Chalicodoma cincta Pollination of Pigeon Pea in Chad | InformativeBD

Clautin Ningatoloum,  Guiguindibaye Madjimbe,  Sidonie Fameni Tope, and Fernand-Nestor Tchuenguem Fohouo, from the institute of Cameroon. wrote a Research article about, Bee Efficiency in Action: Chalicodoma cincta Pollination of Pigeon Pea in Chad. Entitled, Pollination efficiency of Chalicodoma cincta (Fabricius) (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae) on Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp. (Fabaceae) flowers at Doyaba (Sarh, Chad). This research paper published by the Journal of Biodiversity and EnvironmentalSciences | JBES. an open access scholarly research journal on Biodiversity. under the affiliation of the International Network For Natural Sciences| INNSpub. an open access multidisciplinary research journal publisher.

Abstract

To evaluate Chalicodoma cincta impact on pod and seed yields of Cajanus cajan, its foraging and pollinating activities were studied in Doyaba, during the rainy season of 2015 and 2016. Each year, treatments included flowers accessible to all visitors, bagged flowers to avoid insect visitors, bagged  flowers using gauze bags destined to be visited exclusively by C. cincta and bagged flowers destined to opening and closing without the visit of insects or any other organism. For each year of study, observations were made on 1028 ± 90 flowers per treatment. Chalicodoma cincta daily rhythm of activity, its foraging behaviour on flowers and its pollination efficiency were evaluated. On flowers, individual bees intensely harvested exclusively nectar. The fruiting rate, the number of seeds per pod and the percentage of normal seeds of unprotected flowers were significantly higher than those of flowers protected from insects. Through its pollination efficiency, C. cincta provoked a significant increment of the fruiting rate by 21.40% and 7.55%, the number of seeds per pod by 16.69% and 14.96% and the percentage of normal seeds by 32.95% in 2015 and 36.30% in 2016 respectively. The Conservation of C. cincta nests close to C. cajan fields is recommended to improve pod and seed productions in the region.

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Introduction

Several plant species depend on insect pollinators for their reproduction; in agro ecosystems, these pollinators have a great ecological and economic importance because they influence positively the plant production (McGregor, 1976; Philippe, 1991; Tchuenguem, 2005). Cajanus cajan is an ideal pulse crop of rainfed tropics and subtropics (Saxena et al., 2002). Its grows up right to 4 m (Niyonkuru, 2002).

The leaves are generally trifoliate; flower is pink, but can vary from white to red (ICRISAT, 1981) and produces nectar and pollen which attract insects (Grewal et al., 1990; Saxena et al., 1990; Reddy et al., 2004; Sarah et al., 2010).

Indian is the largest producers of pigeon pea in the world (Kimani, 2000). The fruit is a pod containing four raw of seven seeds (Pando et al., 2011b). Seeds contain 21 to 30% proteins important for human’s diets (Sharma and Green, 1980; Gupta et al., 2001; Saxena et al., 2002). Cajanus cajan flowers were reported to produce fewer seeds per pod in the absence o f insect pollinators in Great Britain (Kendall and Smith, 1976) and in Cameroon (Pando et al., 2011b).

The research conducted in the United Stated of America (Grewal et al., 1990; Ibarra-Perez et al., 1999) and in Cameroon (Pando, 2012; Mazi, 2015) has revealed that bees of the genus Chalicodoma and Megachile visits C. cajan flowers and collect nectar and pollen. In Chad, the quantity of Ca. cajan available to consumers is very low, the demand for pigeon pea seeds is high, and its pod and seed yields are weak because notably of the insufficiency of knowledge on its relationships with anthophilous insects in general and C. cincta in particular. Therefore, it is important to investigate how the production of this plant could be increased in Chad. Prior to these studies, no previous research has been reported on the interactions between Ca. cajan and insects in Chad. The main objective of this work is to contribute to the understanding of the relationships between C. cajan and C. cincta, for their optimal management in this country. Specific objectives are to: (a) study the activity of this Megachilidae on C. cajan flowers, (b) evaluate the impact of flowering insects including Ch. cincta on pollination and fruit and seed yields of this Fabaceae, (c) estimate the pollination efficiency of C. cincta on this plant species.

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Article source : Pollination efficiency of Chalicodoma cincta (Fabricius) (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae) on Cajanus cajan(L.) Millsp. (Fabaceae) flowers at Doyaba (Sarh, Chad)