International Journal of Horticulture, 2017,Vol.7, No.2, 7-19
7
Research Article Open Access
Life Table and Nutritional Ecology of
Epilachna vigintioctopunctata
Fab.
(Colioptera: Coccinellidae) on Three Host Plants
Roy N.
M. U. C. Women’s College, Department of Zoology, Ecology Research Unit, Burdwan-713104, West Bengal, India
Corresponding email
International Journal of Horticulture 2017, Vol.7, No.2, doi
Received: 03 Nov., 2016
Accepted: 12 Dec., 2016
Published: 30 Jan., 2017
Copyright
©2017, Roy, This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted
use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article
:
Roy N., 2017, Life table and nutritional ecology of
Epilachna vigintioctopunctata
Fab. (Colioptera:Coccinellidae) on three host plants, International Journal of
Horticulture, 7(2): 7-19 (doi
Abstract
Host preference in relation to life table parameters and nutritional ecology of
Epilachna vigintioctopunctata
Fab. were
studied under laboratory conditions. The pest,
E. vigintioctopunctata
showed more feeding preference and higher reproductive growth to
its host plant,
Solanum melongena
followed by
S. nigrum
and
Momordica cochinchinensis
. The developmental duration of their neonates
was shorter with higher adult longevity, fecundity, hatchability, and accumulated survivability in
S. melongena
followed by
S. nigrum
and
M. cochinchinensis
. The feeding indices and population parameters of
E. vigintioctopunctata
were significantly higher (P < 0.05) on
S. melongena
relative to the other host plants. The pest on
S. melongena
has shorter mean generation time (T
c
) of 59.10 days with higher
net reproductive rate (R
0
) of 16.63. Their generation survival (GS) on S. melongena (0.582) is significantly higher than
S. nigrum
(0.568)
and
M. cochinchinensis
(0.550) with reverse of total generation mortality (K) of 0.290, 0.308 and 0.376, respectively. These differences
in the nutritional ecology and demographic parameters are due to the variation in their phytochemical regime of respective host plants.
Thus, the study may help to find the most vulnerable stage (egg and pupal stage) of this pest for appropriate control measures and also
supports the use of
S. nigrum
as an alternative host towards
S. melongena
and as a trap crop towards
M. cochinchinensis
to avoid or
minimum invasion of this pest for sustainable agriculture.
Keywords
Life table parameters; Nutritional ecology;
Epilachna vigintioctopunctata
;
Solanum melongena
;
S. nigrum
;
Momordica
cochinchinensis
; Phytochemical regime; Trap crop; Sustainable agriculture
Introduction
The phytophagous, 28-spoted, epilachna beetle,
Epilachna vigintioctopunctata
Fab. (Coleopetra: Coccinellidae),
is very important and widely distributed pest in South and East Asia, Australia, America, and the East Indies
(Nakamura, 1976; Richards, 1983; Rajagopal and Trivedi, 1989). They are polyphagous and most destructive pest
over several economic crops in all over India and other countries (Abbas et al., 1988; Abdullah et al., 2003; Anam
et al., 2006; Rahaman et al., 2008; Abdullah, 2009). The host plants range of
E. vigintioctopunctata
in the
Southeast Asian region include solanaceous (brinjal, Potato, tomato, black nightshade), cucurbitaceous (teasel
gourd, ribbed gourd, sweet gourd) and leguminous (
long-podded cowpea, snake bean
) plants (Nakamura et al.,
1988; Rajagopal and Trivedi, 1989; Dhamdhere et al., 1990; Shirai and Katakura, 1999; Khan et al., 2000; Sharma
and Sexena, 2012; Naz et al., 2012).Among the most preferred host plants, eggplant,
Solanum melongena
(Solanaceae) and teasel gourd,
Momordica cochinchinensis
(Cucurbitaceae) are widely cultivated summer
vegetable crop of Indian subcontinent (Abdullah et al., 2003; Tandon and Sirohi, 2009; Khan et al., 2011).Black
nightshade,
Solanum nigrum
(Solanaceae), is a fairly common herb found in disturbed habitats and it can be a
serious agricultural weed when it competes with crops (Abdullah, 2009). In general farmers have to cope with a
range of pests like epilachna beetle (
Epilachna vigintioctopunctata
,
E. dodegastigma, E. indica
), shoot borer
(
Leucinodes orbonalis
), whitefly (
Bemisia tabaci
), red pumpkin beetle (
Aulacophora foveicollis
) and have been
found to affect the growth of this vegetable crops and the weed (Abdullah et al., 2003; Abdullah, 2009; Abe and
Matsuda, 2005; Khan et al., 2011).
Usually, to control the pest outbreaks, growers are often forced to apply chemical pesticides (Rahaman and
Prodhan, 2007) but the sustainability of this strategy is in question because their applications do not provide
