AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH COMMUNICATION CENTRE www.arccjournals.com/www.ijaronline.in B-3772 [1-6] *Corresponding author’s e-mail: sumit87saini@gmail.com 1 MPRNL, LBS Building IARI, New Delhi. 2 CCS HAU, Hisar. Indian J. Anim. Res., Print ISSN:0367-6722 / Online ISSN:0976-0555 Efficient pollinators of threatened taxa, Sarpagandha (Rauvolfia serpentina) under North Indian conditions Vadde Anoosha 1 , Sumit Saini* and H.D. Kaushik 2 Department of Entomology CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar-125 044, Haryana, India. Received: 22-12-2018 Accepted: 29-12-2018 DOI: 10.18805/ijar.B-3772 ABSTRACT An experiment was carried out to investigate the diversity, abundance and pollination efficiency of different insect visitors/ pollinators of Rauvolfia serpentina (Sarpagandha) during 2014 and 2015. This experiment was conducted at Medicinal Section, Department of G &PB, CCSHAU, Hisar. Sarpagandha flowers attracted wide varieties of insects belonging to 4 orders, 10 families, 16 genera and 17 species. Among them nine belongs to order Lepidoptera, one Coleoptera, two Diptera, and two Hymenoptera. Lepidopterans came out to be the most abundant pollinators of this crop. Peak abundance of major insect pollinators was recorded at 1000h-1200h while minimum abundance was recorded at 0600h -0800h. Amegilla zonata had the highest number of loose pollen grains, 23.50 (‘000), sticking to its body followed by Papilio demoleus and Pieris sp. Papilio demoleus was reported as most efficient pollinator followed by Amegilla zonata and Pieris sp. based on the pollination index. Long proboscis of lepidopterans i.e., Papilio demoleus and small sized hymenopterans i.e., Amegilla zonata plays key role in pollination of Sarpagandha. Conservation of these pollinators in natural ecosystem is must for pollination of these threatened taxa. Key words: Insect pollinators, Pollination efficiency, Pollen grains, Sarpagandha. INTRODUCTION Pollination is one of the principal mechanisms in the maintenance and conservation of biodiversity in general life of earth. Pollinators provide an ecosystem service that enables plants to produce fruits and seeds. Over 80 per cent of total pollination activities are performed by insects and bees (Klein et al., 2007). Around 30 percent of human food is derived from bee pollinated crops (O’ Toole, 1993). Pollinating insects are widely found in insect orders Coleoptera, Lepidoptera, Thysanoptera, Diptera and Hymenoptera (Singh and Garg, 2003). The structure of the flowers, their degree of self-fertility and their arrangement on the plant determines the extent to which a plant is dependent on insects for pollen transfer (Free, 1993; Williams, 1994; Richards, 2001, Devi S et al., 2015). Sarpagandha (Rauvolfia serpentina (Linn.) Benth., ex Kurz.) is an evergreen shrub that belongs to the family Apocynaceae (Endress and Bruyns, 2000). Sarpagandha is a threatened species found in the sub-tropical regions. It grows wild in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. Within India, it is grown in almost all parts up to an altitude of about 1000 m above sea level. Five species of sarpagandha (viz., R. hookeri, R. micrantha, R. serpentina, R. tetraphylla and R. Verticillata) have been recorded in India, of which R. Serpentina has attained a great importance as medicinal plant (Pullaiah, 2006). Roots and leaves of this plant contain several alkaloids (Verma et al., 2010) out of those resperine is pharma- cologically most important (Blackwell, 1990). It has lanceolate shaped pale green leaves in whorls of 3 to 5 leaves. It also has white and pink coloured flowers, having filiform style and stigma is bifid having bilocular ovary with two ovules in each locule. The flowers of Sarpagandha have narrow and long tubular corolla. Such flowers make them a perfect representative of psychophilous pollination syndrome negating all other syndromes (Wadhwa and Sihag, 2012). Protogynous conditions of sarpagandha flowers need insect pollinators for cross-pollination. Fruit is drupe, ovoid and purplish black in color when it reaches maturity. Lot of research work done on commercial crops as bee forage but scanty information is available on underutilized medicinal plants. These plants also have important as medicinal crop and knowledge of their mode of pollination and pollinators is the need of the hour. They also serve as minor bee forage in the areas of scarcity. Keeping this idea in view, the present study was undertaken to determine the efficient pollinators of sarpagandha. MATERIALS AND METHODS Pollination studies in sarpagandha were carried out at Research Farm, Department of Genetics and Plant