author(s)
Daniel Farda, Stephanie Beaudelaine Kengni, Sidonie Fameni Tope and Fernand-Nestor Tchuenguem Fohouo

abstract
Experiments were conducted to study the biodiversity of the floral entomofauna of Vigna subterranea and assess its impact on yields. Two treatments of 240 plants were differentiated according to the presence or the absence of their protection regarding insect visits. The insect species richness, the relative abundance, the frequency of visits were recorded and yields were compared between treatments. In 2013 and 2014, 1402 and 1622 visits of seven insect species were recorded on V. subterranea flowers respectively. Paragus borbonicus was the most frequent insect species, followed by Eurema eximia. The comparison of yields of the two treatments showed that insects significantly increased the podding rate by 62.05%, as well as the number of seeds per pod by 15.98% and the percentage of normal seeds by 18.11%. This study provided some knowledge about the anthophilous insect’s diversity of this Fabaceae, which can be exploited to improve pod production.