Diversity of beetles associated with watermelon crops Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) Mats. in the region of Ouargla (southern Algeria)

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How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Kacha D, Guezoul O, Marniche F, Viñolas A (2022): Diversity of beetles associated with watermelon crops Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) Mats. in the region of Ouargla (southern Algeria). v2.3. Museu de Ciències Naturals de Barcelona. Dataset/Occurrence. https://doi.org/10.15470/sfhxty

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The publisher and rights holder of this work is Museu de Ciències Naturals de Barcelona. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) License.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: ff273c1a-9abe-4353-af0f-2fed1031e4f0.  Museu de Ciències Naturals de Barcelona publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF Spain.

Keywords

Inventory; Diversity; Watermelon; Beetle; Barber pot; Ouargla; Occurrence; Occurrence

Contacts

Geographic Coverage

The present experiment was carried out in the palm grove of Zaatote at Ouargla. This palm grove is located on the road between the region of Ouargla and El-Goléa (10 km south-east of Ouargla). The region of Ouargla is located in the Saharan bioclimatic zone. It has clay-sandy soils. The winter is temperate and summers are hot and dry.

Taxonomic Coverage

No Description available

Temporal Coverage

Project Data

Watermelon (Citrulus lanatus (Thunb.) Mats is an annual plant belonging to the family of Cucurbitaceae, native to tropical Africa, (Paris, 2015). The ripe fruit has a high nutritional value, being rich in vitamins B1, B2, A, C, and mineral salts, particularly magnesium (van Der Vosssen et al., 2004). In Algeria, especially in the province of Ouargla, watermelon is perceived as a promising sector. According to the Directorate of Agricultural Services (DSA, 2020), the area of watermelon in crops in green houses in the 2019/20 season was estimated to be 1,957.5 ha with a production of 1,082,500 qx/ha. The area of crops in the open field is estimated at 274 ha with a production of 31,792 qx. The harvest generally lasts from April until mid-June. Watermelon in Ouargla are now cultivated in several new agricultural areas, such as Khechem-Errih, Hassi Benandalleh, Hassi Messaoud and Taibet (DSA, 2020). Considering the rapid maturation of this crop, farmers in these regions are interested in growing this product to benefit from the high prices at the start of the marketing campaign, despite lower yields. Market gardening has become one of the main income-generating activities in the area (Toni et al., 2020). However, the crops face several phytosanitary problems, such as pest arthropods that can severely damage the output. (Diatte et al., 2016). Unfortunately, the list of vegetable crop pests in general is not well established in the region of Ouargla. To our knowledge, the diversity or abundance of insects associated with watermelon production in this region has not been studied to date. The first step to protect this crop is therefore to determine which pest and which non-pest arthropods are associated with this plant. The present study was conducted to identify and create an inventory of the different families of beetles living in watermelon fields in order to establish sustainable phytosanitary protection of the crop. We aimed to establish a basic repository in order to draw up an inventory of the main pests and evaluate the natural control agents.

The personnel involved in the project:

Sampling Methods

Sampling was carried out in three plots, each of 500 m², using Barber pots from December (transplanting) until June (fruiting and ripening of the first fruits). The pots used were cylindrical cans, 15 cm in diameter and 18 cm in height (Benkhelil, 1991). They were buried vertically so that the opening was at ground level to avoid the barrier effect for small species. We installed 10 traps 5 meters apart per row in each field so that there was no interaction between them. The traps were filled with water to one-third and a few drops of detergent were added to prevent insects from climbing up the walls. The pots were placed on the ground and collected after 24 hours. The contents of each pot were filtered separately on to petri dishes, labelled with number, date and place of capture, and stored in alcohol (70%), for subsequent faunal determinations in the laboratory. The watermelon plots where traps were installed watermelon underwent phytosanitary treatment at various stages crop growth.

Method step description:

1. Recorded data based on identified beetle catches were analysed using software PASTsoftware (PA-leontologicalSTatistics) Version 2.17 (Hammer et al., 2001). The following numerical indices were used: the centesimal frequency (Fc), the Shannon Diversity Index (H’)and the Pielou equity index (E).

Bibliographic Citations

1. Kacha, D., Guezoul, O., Marniche, F., Viñolas, A., 2021. Diversity of beetles associated with watermelon crops Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) Mats. in the region of Ouargla (southern Algeria). Arxius de Miscel·lània Zoològica, 19: 73–82, Doi: https://doi.org/10.32800/amz.2021.19.0073 https://doi.org/10.32800/amz.2021.19.0073

Additional Metadata