Diversity of Insect Pollinators on Sesame

Field experiment was carried out to explore the pollinator fauna and their abundance and diversity on sesamum. The results revealed 19 pollinators belonging to six families from three orders viz., Hymenoptera, Diptera and Coleoptera. Among these the order Hymenoptera was predominant having 15 species with maximum relative abundance. Foraging behaviour of Apis sp. was more (4.19 individuals/ m2/ 5 min) and non Apis sp. was less (1.12 individuals/ m2/ 5 min). Eventhough Diptera and Coleoptera shared equal number of species, the foraging behaviour and abundance was maximum with Diptera (1.02 individuals/ m2/ 5 min). The sesamum ecosystem flourished with pollinators during 0800-1000 and 1000-1200 hr with higher diversity indices of Shannon’s H (2.52) during 1000-1200 hr and Simpson’s D index (0.22) between 1600-1800 hr. Shannon’s E index was higher (0.85) during 1000-1200 and 1600-1800 hr