Tropic Niche Specialization of Butea monosperma from Chandigarh

Abstract

The tropic niche specialization entails how an organism responds to the sharing of available habit and habitat stuffs and possible competitors. The form and number of variables comprising the dimensions of an environmental niche vary from one species to another. The relative importance of particular environmental variables for a species may vary according to the geographical and biotic perspectives. The tropic niche was studied with respect to Butea monosperma (Lam.) commonly called as `Flame of forest` or `Parrot tree` or `Palas`. It belongs to the family Fabaceae and distributed throughout India. The comprehensive and extensive study was made to work out the tropic niche specialization of this plant in different location of the city beautiful-Chandigarh which is also the State flower of Chandigarh. The observations were made with respect to sixteen species belonging to insects and birds; reptile and mammal which are attracted to Butea monosperma on account of its rich source of nectar.