PEST–PREDATOR DYNAMICS AND THEIR EFFECTS ON FLOWER ABORTION IN GREENHOUSETOMATO PLANTS
Keywords:
tomato production, greenhouse agriculture, insect pests, biological control, crop yieldAbstract
This is because insect pests often influence greenhouse tomato production, but the interactions amongtheabundance of the pests, the predators, and the damage inflicted by the pests, and their effects onreproductive performance have not been fully studied under controlled cultivation settings. This studyexamined temporal patterns in pest and predator populations and evaluated their associations withplant damage and flower abortion in greenhouse tomato plants. Observational plant-level datacollected from greenhouse compartments over five sampling weeks were analyzed. The final datasetconsisted of 800 observations obtained by integrating pest, predator, and flower datasets using sharedplant identifiers. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize biological variables, while Pearsoncorrelation analysis and multiple linear regression were applied to assessrelationships among pests,predators, plant damage indicators, and reproductive traits. Pest and predator populations werehighest during the early sampling period and declined in later weeks. Necrotic rings showed thestrongest positive correlation withflower abortion (r = 0.403). Regression analysis indicated thatnecrotic rings and sampling week were significant predictors of flower abortion, whereas pestabundance showed weaker associations. These findings suggest that plant damage indicators and
temporal dynamics play an important role in reproductive loss in greenhouse tomato systems.
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