Reproductive Ecology of Randia Dmetorum: Factors affects high Flower to Fruit ratio

Abstract

In this study, we examined the reproductive ecology of Randia dumetorum at Bhi-mashankar, which constitutes the Northern limit of Western Ghats. We investigated the various factors which affect the fruit set of the plant, namely resource availability, polli-nation, phenology, predation etc. In Randia, stored resources were observed to have an effect on fruit set of Randia, high fruit number in the previous year resulted in low fruit number the next year and the trees which had low fruiting the previous year were bearing high number of fruits the next year. Resource allocation was also found to be non-uniform, there was branch-specificity attached to trees with higher fruit number. Flowering phenology was observed to have no effect on flower number but late onset of flowering and shorter flowering duration resulted in high fruit number. Another factor, predation, was checked and found that there are signs of at least two pre-dispersal predators. One of them identified as Virachola perse ghela. Pre-dispersal predation did not depend on flowering start date but longer flowering duration lead to less predation. Also, the proportion of infested fruits decreased with the increase in total fruits, possibly leading to predator satiation.