Effect of Weather Factors on the Host-Predators Relationship in the Aleyrodid, Siphoninus phillyreae finitimus Goux on Pomegranate

Abstract

Three species of insects viz., Sticholotis sp.. Chrysopa sp. and Aclctozenus indica Malloch are recorded for the first time to be prodaceous on the white-fly, Siphoninus phillyreae finitimus Goux, of which the Drosophilid fly, A. indica Malloch, was found to be the predominant one. The general population trend of the predators was found to follow a moro or less similar trend to that of the host. Among the weather factors minimum temperature and evening humidity showed a positively significant association with the aleyrodid infestation. Minimum temporature and morning humidity were found to have positive and negative associations respectively with the population of predators at a significant level. Population fluctuations of both the predators and the pest (prey) were found to be more or less interdepen dent. The aleyrodid infestation was decidedly governed by the weather elements morning humidity and evening humidity in addition to the biological factor viz., population of predators.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.29321/MAJ.10.A03920

Pages

3 - 21

Creative Commons

Copyright

© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Madras Agricultural Students' Union in Madras Agricultural Journal (MAJ). This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited by the user.

Keywords