Diversity of Insects in Sweet Gourd Field of Bangladesh

The study was conducted at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University, Gazipur, Bangladesh during September 2016 to June 2017 to observe abundance and diversity of insects in sweet gourd Cucurbita moschata. The sweet gourd cultivated in winter season revealed significantly shorter durations in production of more than one flower, fruit formation, fruit elongation, fruit maturation for harvest and fruit maturation for seed production compared to summer season. The pest, predator, pollinator and other category insects visited in the field showed significant difference in their abundance, richness and diversity, and the pests and predators were statistically similar and higher compared to pollinators and other category. In total 409 insects were collected of which 130 were in winter and 279 were in summer, and the insects in the order Coleoptera was most abundant in both the seasons. Of the total collected species, 11 species were pest and their relative abundance varied from 0.05 to 2.57 per 30 sweeps. In total 8 species of insects were predator and their relative abundance ranged from 0.24 to 2.24 per 30 sweeps. The pollinator insets showed the highest and lowest abundance was at 09.00 and 13.00 h of the day, respectively both in winter and summer.