The impact of Psittacula krameri (Scopoli, 1769) on orchards: first quantitative evidence for Southern Europe

The study was carried out in a green area of Rome, during September, when the almond fruits were ripe and ring-necked parakeets had just finished their breeding period, so that also juveniles were foraging on fruits. To obtain data on the impact of parakeets on almond fruits, first we randomly selected a set of trees (n = 48) inside the almond orchard sample, using a random number generator. Then, we counted the number of total available almond fruits occurring on each tree, checking for the almond fruits with evident damage caused by ring-necked parakeet (about four hours in the sampling effort in a single sampling day). Our evidence highlights that, where these parakeets occur, the level of damage could be significant (about 30% of fruits damaged) and highly dependent on both fruit availability and the distance of trees from the orchard edge. Although we carried out this study immediately before the harvest period, damage could have further increased in subsequent days (until harvesting) since parakeets prefer progressively more mature fruits.