Pollination Ecology Of Some Selected Tree Species In Bagale Hills Forest Reserve And Jos Wildlife Park, Nigeria

Background: This study assessed the pollination ecology of some selected trees in Bagale Hills Forest Reserve (BHFR) in Adamawa State and Jos Wildlife Park (JWLP) in Plateau State. The objectives were to: assess angiosperm diversity; determine polinator diversity; compare the flowering of angiosperms between the two studied locations and investigate plant-pollinator interaction in between the studied locations. Materials and Method: The systematic line transect method was deployed for laying out transects. Four transects of 1 km were laid in the two geolocations and four sampled plots of 50 m x 50 m was laid alternately along each of the transect. Three angiosperms were selected randomly and were used for collection of data on phenology, pollination and plant-pollinator interactions. The two locations were traversed for three months and the appearance of flowering buds and presence of pollinators on targeted tree species were observed. Data were analysed and presented using the Descriptive statistics but Shannon-Wiener’s diversity index was used to determine diversity. The diversity of the pollinators of BHFR and JWLP were compared using the paired simple t-Test. Results: The result of the Shannon-Wiener Diversity Index indicates pollinator species diversity of 2.686 in BHFR, while pollinator species diversity in JWLP was 2.589 respectively. There was no significant difference between the pollinator’s diversity of BHFR and JWLP (p > 0.05). The result of phenological scoring showed that 3.25 % of the tree species were flowering during the wet season in both studied locations. Plant-pollinator interactions showed that the pollinators encountered during the study were invertebrates that were not evenly distributed. Additionally, all sampled tree species encountered were generalist. Despite variation in ecological features of the two locations, plant species and pollinator diversity were similar. Conclusion: It was concluded that conservation education for the communities surrounding the two study sites must be given due priority