Seasonal Incidence and Damage Potentiality of the Aulacophora (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) Species in Cucurbits from the Southern part of Bangladesh

Abstract

Experiments on seasonal incidence and damage potentiality of the Aulacophora species in cucurbits from Southern part of Bangladesh were carried out in the field and in the Taxonomic Lab, Department of Entomology, Patuakhali Science and Technology University during the period from April, 2019 to March 2020.Three cucurbitaceous vegetables viz. sweet gourd, bitter gourd and bottle gourd were selected as test crops to know the incidence in the field; and snake gourd was used instead of bottle gourd along with other two to know the damage potentiality of red pumpkin beetle in the lab. They occurred throughout the year, but they were active from March to October, though the peak period of activity was between April to June and caused severe damage to the crops, especially at the seedling stage. The highest incidence of beetle per plant (76.0) was observed on sweet gourd followed by bottle gourd (36.0) and lowest on bitter gourd (4.0). Considering to leaf area consumptions, red pumpkin beetle was found mostly harmful to snake gourd (34.76%) followed by sweet gourd (27.04%) and no damage or infestation caused by Aulacophora foveicollis to bitter gourd was observed. On the other hand, percent leaf infestation per plant of sweet gourd, bottle gourd and bitter gourd was 52.3±1.2, 38.7±1.1 and 3.5±0.7 respectively caused by Aulacophora species. Snake gourd was more vulnerable to red pumpkin beetle than the other tested cucurbits.