author(s)
Rojeet Thangjam, Veronica Kadam, RK Borah and Kennedy Ningthoujam

abstract
A field experiment was carried out at Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat, India during 2014-16 to investigate the population dynamics of pests and their natural enemies in king chilli ecosystem. During the study, some pests were observed for a considerable period of time and some were present throughout the cropping season. The incidence of cutworm (Agrotis ipsilon) was confined only in the seedling stage whereas fruitfly (Bactrocera latifrons) during the later stages of the crop and most of the sucking pests and their predators were observed throughout the cropping season with maximum incidence during vegetative to flowering stages of the crop. However, most of the pest population and their natural enemies were low in both the seasons. A significant positive correlation of aphids (r= 0.464, r= 0.487), whitefly (r= 0.442, r= 0.478), fruit fly (r= 0.536, r= 0.704) and spider (r= 0.536, r= 470) was observed with maximum temperature whereas whitefly and leafhoppers showed significant negative correlation (r= -0.641, r= -0.578 and r= -0.684, r= -0.583, respectively) with the average relative humidity during both the seasons. The prey population also had a significant positive influence on coccinellid (r= 0.791, r= 0.528) and spider (r= 0.768, r= 0.683) population in both the seasons.