Vol. 11 No. SP
Fruit diversity in the coastal homesteads of Bangladesh
Author(s): C. R. Sarker, M. Robbani, M. A. Rahim, T M. T. Iqbal
Abstract: A survey was conducted during October 2011 – September 2012 at 189 homesteads of seven upazillas of Patuakhali coast of Bangladesh to study the species diversity, species richness and relative prevalence of fruit species therein. From the survey, it was clear that the species diversity was higher for some major fruits: mango (0.923), banana (improved) (0.989), pineapple (0.987), coconut (0.901) and papaya (0.921). But of the minor fruits, velvet apple was highest (0.994) while wax jambu was least (0.517). In terms of species richness, there were 57 species and out of those, all (100%) species, 9 (66.0%) were major and 48 (33.94%) were minor, and also 36 were common in each upazilla. It was noted further that mango was in 100% homesteads in 5, jackfruit in 100% homesteads in 4, pineapple in 100% homesteads in 1, coconut in 100% homesteads in 5, guava in 100% homesteads in 6, pummelo in 100% homesteads in 2 and velvet apple in 100% homesteads in 1 upazilla. Again, mango was in 99.47, banana (improved) in 93.12, jackfruit in 96.83, coconut in 98.94, guava in 98.94 and velvet apple in 91.53% homesteads too. Again, in terms of relative prevalence, among the 57 species, 36 were common at all upazillas, the relative prevalence of the most prevalent species, i.e. mango, banana (improved), velvet apple, coconut, jackfruit, papaya and guava were very high while less common species, i.e. papaya, pineapple, palmyra palm, banana (seeded), pummelo, lime, river ebony and monkey jack were low.
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