Crop raiding and management of Funambulus palmarum in cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum) plantations of Western Ghats of Karnataka, south India

Funambulus palmarum has evolved crop-raiding habits to exploit food resources in agricultural ecosystems like cardamom plantations in the Western Ghats, southern India. Gut content analyses reveal that these squirrels principally feed on cardamom during its fruiting period. They prefer old, yellow,...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Veröffentlicht in:Current science (Bangalore) 2008-10, Vol.95 (7), p.907-911
Hauptverfasser: Chakravarthy, A. K., Thyagaraj, N. E., Kumar, L. Vijay, Girish, A. C.
Format: Artikel
Sprache:eng
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:Volltext
Tags: Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:Funambulus palmarum has evolved crop-raiding habits to exploit food resources in agricultural ecosystems like cardamom plantations in the Western Ghats, southern India. Gut content analyses reveal that these squirrels principally feed on cardamom during its fruiting period. They prefer old, yellow, mature capsules emanating the typical cardamom odour. At other times of the year, the squirrels consume termites, ants, ground beetles, bugs, soil insects, other arthropods, flower buds, fruits and seeds of wild plants, including weeds. The timely picking of cardamom capsules, clean cultivation, overlapping panicles, mulching (for small areas, usually
ISSN:0011-3891