Butterfly-Plant Diversity in Malappuram District Of Kerala, India: A Way of Plant – Pollinator Communications

Binu Thomas¹ , Hima A.² , Hariprasad N.³ , Mariya Jose⁴

Section:Research Paper, Product Type: Journal-Paper
Vol.9 , Issue.2 , pp.58-66, Apr-2022

Online published on Apr 30, 2022

Copyright © Binu Thomas, Hima A., Hariprasad N., Mariya Jose . This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
 

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Abstract :
The present study documented that, total of 33 plant species belonging to 18 families and 29 genera were pollinated by various kinds of butterflies (41 butterfly species belongs to 27 genera and 5 families) Among the documented plant familiesAsteraceae is the dominant one with 10 species, followed by Fabaceae with 4 species and Boraginaceae and Verbenaceae with 2 species respectively. The plants which are documented from the study are divided in to two categories such as plants are pollinated by various butterflies (33 species) as well as plants are preferred by different butterflies for their ovi posting and larval development (63 species). The flower colour analysis reveals that maximum number of butterflies which are visited yellow colour (10 species) followed by white colour (8 species), orange colour (7 species), red colour (6 species), violet (3 species), yellowish-orange (2 species), purple (2 species). Cream, rose and blue colour visited by single butterfly species respectively. Present study also concluded that, the plant-insect interaction is an essential factor for pollination process and better yield in both wild as well as crop plants. Hence an adequate care should be taken to conserve both flora and fauna of our surroundings for future generation.

Key-Words / Index Term :
Butterfly-plant interaction, Pollinators, Ovi posting, Conservation

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