Quantifying the Floral Nectar Production of the Threatened AloeBenishangulana (Aloaceae) Herb to Uplift the Existing Conservation Approach

Abstract:

Aloe benishangulana Sebsebe & Tesfaye is a threatened member of geophytes under the family Aloaceae represented by a single 2 population restricted to a narrow zone (1000m ) with three mature individuals in Benishangul Gumuz Regional State, Assosa area, Village-11. To quantify the loral nectar production 1014 lowers were sampled from six openhandedly watered open-grown plots from April to June 2022 and October to April 2023. The collected data was analyzed by using Prism 8.4.3 (Graph Pad Software). The statistical analysis for investigating the differences among insect types in lower visitation rate, which was the main study question, was conducted using R 3.0.2. The lmer function from the lme4 package was utilized for all analyses. A. benishangulana showed 16 mean visitations per 1m period by honeybees (23%). During stage II of loral development, the average cumulative sugar content per lower in loral nectar was 0.9 mg. However, during stage III, it increased signi icantly to 1.25 mg. Similarly, the average cumulative nectar volume was 0.99 μL during stage III. Although it was higher (1.36 μL) during stage II, this difference was not statistically signi icant. The mean sugar concentration (°Brix) was 67.8 during stage II, and it was slightly higher (70.3) during stage III, but again, not signi icantly so.