On the Quantification of Information Content of Flower-Insect Interaction by the Species Diversity Indices: A Case Study in Flower Visiting Hymenopterans

Abstract

Several interesting views have been suggested regarding the kind of biological communication systems that exists between the insects and plant community as a whole. Our study attempts to measure the information content transmitted through different floral attributes which in turn is received by the visiting hymenopteran insects. Ten different floral patches bloomed in different times of the season for a period of 3 years had been studied in the agricultural tracts. We have used the Shannon Wiener Function and Brillouin’s Index in order to ascertain the probable information content of such interaction. Higher values of information content obtained in case of the cultivated food plants point towards the presence of a greater preference for these floral patches by the different foraging insect species compared to the wild and cultivated horticultural species.