Diversity study of aphids and associated predatory fauna occurred in major Kharif and Rabi crop ecosystems of Akola, Maharashtra, India

Abstract

The present investigation entitled “Aphid diversity and associated predatory fauna in different crop-ecosystems of Akola” was carried out during the year 2017-2018. During study period total 1810 specimens of aphids and 205 specimens of predatory fauna associated with aphids collected from various Kharif and Rabi crops agro-ecosystem. The collected data revealed that total seven species of aphids and sixteen species of predators were collected from different crop agro-ecosystem. In aphids seven species viz; Aphis gossypii (Glover), Aphis craccivora (Koch), Rhopalosiphum maidis (Fitch), Aphis (Taxoptera) citricidus (Kirkaldy), Lipaphis erysimi (Kaltenbach), Hysteroneura setariae (Thomas) and Uroleucon compositae (Theobald). Aphid’s population varied in the Kharif and Rabi crop season in the various crop fields, maximum population of aphids was observed in the month of November-December. However, moderate to rich species biodiversity of aphids species was noticed as per Shannon Biodiversity Index (H’=1.545) in Akola vicinity during kharif 2017-18. Simpson index value was 0.75. The Evenness index had a value of 0.79. Species wise data of aphids showed rich fauna of U. compositae with 37.24 per cent.