Journal of Threatened Taxa |
www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 September 2020 | 12(13): 16879–16884
ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893
(Print)
doi: https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.5973.12.13.16879-16884
#5973 | Received 10 April 2020 | Final
received 11 September 2020 | Finally accepted 17 September 2020
A diversity of spiders
(Arachnida: Araneae) from a cashew ecosystem in
Kerala, India
Mamparambath Subramanian Smitha 1 &
Ambalaparambil V. Sudhikumar
2
1 College of Horticulture, Vellanikkara, Kerala Agricultural University, Thrissur,
Kerala 680656, India.
2 Centre for Animal Taxonomy &
Ecology, Department of Zoology (DST-FIST), Christ College (Autonomous), Irinjalakuda,
Kerala 680125, India.
1 smitha.ms@kau.in (corresponding author), 2 avsudhi@christcollegeijk.edu.in
Editor: John Caleb, Zoological Survey of
India, Kolkata, India. Date of publication: 26
September 2020 (online & print)
Citation: Smitha, M.S. & A.V. Sudhikumar (2020). A diversity
of spiders (Arachnida: Araneae) from a cashew
ecosystem in Kerala, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 12(13): 16879–16884. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.5973.12.13.16879-16884
Copyright: © Smitha & Sudhikumar 2020. Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproduction,
and distribution of this article in any medium by providing adequate credit to
the author(s) and the source of publication.
Funding: Indian Council of Agricultural
Research-Directorate of Cashew
Research(ICAR-DCR), Puttur, Karnataka.
Competing interests: The authors
declare no competing interests.
Acknowledgements: We thank Indian Council of
Agricultural Research-Directorate of Cashew Research (ICAR-DCR), Puttur for funding and support. We thank Professor &
Head, Cashew Research Station, Madakkathara (KAU) for
providing facilities, and Sri Sachin Krishna, College of Forestry (KAU) for preparing the map used in this paper. We
thank the anonymous reviewers, Subject Editor and Chief Editor for their
critical comments and suggestions.
Abstract: An exhaustive study was conducted
to document spider fauna in cashew orchards of the Cashew Research Station, Madakkathara, Kerala, India from January 2015 to July
2017. A total of 63 species of spiders
under 52 genera belonging to 14 families were recorded. The most species-rich families were Salticidae and Araneidae
representing 33 and 27 per cent, respectively, of the total spider fauna. A guild structure analysis revealed six
feeding guilds, viz.: stalkers, orb-web builders, foliage runners, scattered
line weavers, ground runners, and ambushers.
The occurrence of spiders was at a maximum during the monsoon with 59
species, followed by 26 during winter, 16 species during summer, and eight
species being present all-round the year.
Keywords: Araneidae,
Cashew orchards, guild structure, Madakkathara, Salticidae, seasonal variation.
Cashew is a perennial
agricultural ecosystem with a rich arthropod diversity including pests and
natural enemies. Cashew growers mainly
depend on synthetic insecticides for the management of insect pests without any
consideration to the system that may have deleterious effects on natural pest
controlling biota. Hence, there is a
need to redefine pest management with an emphasis on non-chemical methods. Ants and spiders are the most abundant
general predators in a cashew ecosystem (Beevi & Mahapatro 2008).
The World Spider Catalog (2020) documents a total of 48,642 described
species belonging to 4,173 genera and 128 families worldwide. Presently, 1,843 species under 471 genera in
61 families are known from India (Caleb & Sankaran 2020). Spiders have an important role in ecosystem
functioning (Kralj-Fiser & Gregoric
2019) and were reported as predators of the Tea Mosquito Bug Helopeltis antonii Signoret,
a major insect pest of cashew, causing economic yield loss (Devasahayam & Nair 1986).
The diversity as well as the
role of spiders in agricultural fields have been documented in several studies
(Breene et al. 1993; Marc et al. 1999; Rajeshwaran et al. 2005; Baba et al. 2018; Yang et al.
2018). They serve as general predators
in agricultural ecosystems (Riechert & Bishop
1990) especially in orchard crops associated with diverse pest fauna. So far, a few attempts have been made to
document spider fauna associated with the cashew ecosystem in Kerala. Choudhuri (1962)
reported spiders under seven families occurring in cashew plantations of
Kerala. Raghavendra (2001) collected 156
spider specimens belonging to Araneidae, Salticidae, Thomisidae, and Oxyopidae. Several
spiders were reported predating on early instar nymphs of H. antonii (Sundararaju 1984; Devasahayam & Nair 1986). Among a list of arthropod predatory fauna
recorded from cashew panicles, Sundararaju (2003)
reported six species of spiders. A
notable initiative was made by Beevi & Mahapatro (2008); they recorded 35 species of spiders under
nine families and differentiated them under four guild structures, namely:
stalkers, orb weavers, and foliage & ground runners. According to Bhat et al. (2013), among 117
species under 18 families recorded in a cashew ecosystem, Telamonia dimidiata, Oxyopes shweta, and O. sunandae have a preference for the Tea Mosquito Bug in
spite of spiders being generalist predators.
Systematic documentation is
necessary to conserve these natural pest-regulating factors for maintaining
ecosystem sustainability and conservation of biodiversity. The studies that have been done so far in
Kerala documented some species but almost a decade has passed and there has
been no attempt to update the status of spider diversity associated with cashew
ecosystems. In view of the importance of
spiders in an ecosystem, the present study will help improve the understanding
on diversity and seasonal occurrence and thereby help in developing a future
integrated pest management strategy (IPM) in cashew.
Materials and
Methods
The study was carried out in
cashew plantations of 120 acre farm area under Cashew Research Station, Madakkathara, Kerala Agricultural University, Thrissur,
India in two crop seasons in fields planted under normal spacing of 7m ×
7m. The farm is situated between
10.555–10.548 N & 76.259–76.268 E and at an altitude of 30m. Soil type is laterite with pH 5.5, annual
rainfall of 280cm, maximum temperature 29.1–36.5 0C and minimum
temperature 21.2–25.1 0C (Beevi & Mahapatro 2008). The
study area consists of only cashew plantations with different weeds including
grasses in the ground level vegetation.
Field observations were made
from January 2015 to July 2017. Spiders
were handpicked from the foliage and twigs, covering all age-classes of cashew
trees. The specimens were collected from
reachable tree-heights and were preserved in 70% ethyl alcohol in glass vials labeled with the date of collection. The spiders were categorized based on their
abundance in the cashew orchard and noted with respect to their seasonal
occurrence. Specimens were observed
under a Leica M205 C stereozoom microscope and
identified following the literature available from World Spider Catalog (2020).
Voucher specimens were deposited at Centre for Animal Taxonomy and
Ecology (CATE), Department of Zoology, Christ College, Irinjalakuda,
Kerala.
Results and
Discussion
A total of 63 species of spiders
belonging to 52 genera under 14 families were identified during this study
(Table 1). The family with the highest
number of species is Salticidae with 21 species
(33%), followed by Araneidae with 17 species
(27%). The families Philodromidae
and Hersiliidae were recorded with only a single
species (Table 2, Figure 2). A study of
seasonal variation showed that more species (i.e., 59 species) were recorded
during the monsoon followed by 26 species in winter and 16 species in summer
(Figure 3). The sampled spiders belong
to six functional groups (guilds) based on their foraging behavior
(Uetz et al. 1999). The dominant guild was the stalkers with 24
species followed by orb-web builders (20 species), foliage runners (six
species), ground runners (six species) and ambushers (five species). Scattered line weavers (two species) were the
least represented among the feeding guilds from the study area (Figure 4).
The study recorded 63 species of
spiders belonging to 14 families representing 22.95% of the total 61 families
reported from India. The maximum number
of species was collected during monsoon, clearly indicating the occurrence in
response to the availability of prey populations (Bhat et al. 2013), mainly
leaf feeding caterpillars and leaf miners infesting cashew in the flushing
phase coinciding August–September. This is followed by winter with crop in full
bloom during which the inflorescence pests are available in plenty. The availability of inflorescence pests from
December to April has supported the spiders during winter and even in the
summer season as evidenced from the diversity with 16 species during summer.
Conclusion
The present investigation
documents the diversity of spiders associated with cashew representing a
perennial agro-ecosystem. This data provides scope for further research
on the relationship of spider fauna with other biotic factors in the background
of bio-intensive pest management in cashew.
Further studies could focus on the variation in the spider population
with respect to sprayed and unsprayed orchards.
In an era of organic crop production, a better understanding of natural
pest-regulating factors would assure an ecosystem-oriented pest management and
a safe harvest.
Table 1. List of spider species collected from cashew
ecosystem with seasonal occurrence.
|
Species |
Seasonal occurrence |
||
M |
S |
W |
||
|
I. Araneidae |
|
|
|
1 |
Anepsion maritatum (O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1877) |
+ |
- |
- |
2 |
Araneus bilunifer Pocock, 1900 |
+ |
+ |
- |
3 |
Araneus mitificus (Simon, 1886) |
+ |
- |
- |
4 |
Argiope anasuja Thorell, 1887 |
+ |
- |
- |
5 |
Argiope pulchella Thorell,
1881 |
+ |
+ |
+ |
6 |
Cyclosa bifida (Doleschall,
1859) |
+ |
- |
- |
7 |
Cyclosa confraga (Thorell,
1892) |
+ |
- |
- |
8 |
Cyrtarachne raniceps Pocock,
1900 |
+ |
+ |
- |
9 |
Cyrtophora citricola (Forsskal,
1775) |
+ |
- |
+ |
10 |
Eriovixia excelsa (Simon, 1889) |
+ |
- |
- |
11 |
Eriovixia laglaizei (Simon, 1877) |
+ |
- |
- |
12 |
Eriovixia poonaensis (Tikader &
Bal, 1981) |
+ |
- |
- |
13 |
Gasteracantha geminata (Fabricius, 1798) |
+ |
- |
+ |
14 |
Neoscona mukerjei Tikader, 1980 |
- |
+ |
+ |
15 |
Neoscona molemensis Tikader &
Bal, 1981 |
+ |
- |
- |
16 |
Parawixia dehaani (Doleschall,
1859) |
+ |
- |
- |
17 |
Porcataraneus bengalensis (Tikader,
1975) |
+ |
|
|
|
II. Cheiracanthiidae |
|
|
|
18 |
Cheiracanthium danieli Tikader, 1975 |
+ |
- |
+ |
19 |
Cheiracanthium melanostomum (Thorell,
1895) |
+ |
- |
+ |
|
III. Clubionidae |
|
|
|
20 |
Clubiona drassodes O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1877 |
+ |
- |
+ |
21 |
Matidia incurvata Reimoser, 1934 |
+ |
- |
+ |
|
IV. Corinnidae |
|
|
|
22 |
Aetius decollatus O.
Pickard-Cambridge, 1897 |
+ |
- |
- |
23 |
Castaneira zetes Simon, 1897 |
+ |
- |
- |
|
V. Gnaphosidae |
|
|
|
24 |
Drassodes delicatus (Blackwall,
1867) |
+ |
- |
- |
25 |
Gnaphosa rohtakensis Gajbe, 1992 |
+ |
- |
- |
|
VI. Hersiliidae |
|
|
|
26 |
Hersilia savignyi Lucas, 1836 |
+ |
- |
- |
|
VII. Lycosidae |
|
|
|
27 |
Hippasa agelenoides (Simon, 1884) |
+ |
- |
+ |
28 |
Pardosa sumatrana (Thorell, 1890) |
+ |
- |
- |
|
VIII. Oxyopidae |
|
|
|
29 |
Oxyopes birmanicus Thorell, 1887 |
- |
+ |
+ |
30 |
Oxyopes javanus Thorell, 1887 |
- |
+ |
+ |
31 |
Oxyopes wroughtoni Pocock, 1901 |
+ |
+ |
+ |
|
IX. Philodromidae |
|
|
|
32 |
Philodromus bigibbus (O.
Pickard-Cambridge, 1876) |
+ |
- |
- |
|
X. Salticidae |
|
|
|
33 |
Asemonea tenuipes (O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1869) |
+ |
+ |
- |
34 |
Brettus cingulatus Thorell, 1895 |
+ |
- |
- |
35 |
Carrhotus viduus (C.L. Koch, 1846) |
+ |
- |
- |
36 |
Epeus indicus Proszynski, 1992 |
+ |
+ |
+ |
37 |
Epeus triangulopalpis
Malamel, Nafin, Sudhikumar & Sebastian, 2019 |
+ |
- |
- |
38 |
Harmochirus brachiatus (Thorell,
1877) |
+ |
- |
- |
39 |
Hasarius adansoni (Audouin,
1826) |
- |
+ |
- |
40 |
Hyllus semicupreus (Simon, 1885) |
+ |
+ |
+ |
41 |
Indopadilla insularis (Malamel,
Sankaran & Sebastian, 2015) |
+ |
- |
+ |
42 |
Menemerus bivittatus (Dufour, 1831) |
+ |
- |
- |
43 |
Myrmaplata plataleoides (O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1869) |
+ |
+ |
- |
44 |
Myrmarachne ramunni Narayan, 1915 |
+ |
- |
- |
45 |
Phintelloides jesudasi (Caleb & Mathai, 2014) |
+ |
- |
- |
46 |
Piranthus planolancis Malamel, Nafin, Sudhikumar & Sebastian, 2019) |
+ |
- |
- |
47 |
Plexippus petersi (Karsch, 1878) |
+ |
+ |
+ |
48 |
Phintella vittata (C.L. Koch, 1846) |
+ |
+ |
+ |
49 |
Portia fimbriata (Doleschall,
1859) |
+ |
- |
- |
50 |
Rhene danieli Tikader, 1973 |
+ |
- |
- |
51 |
Siler semiglaucus (Simon, 1901) |
+ |
- |
- |
52 |
Telamonia dimidiata (Simon, 1899) |
+ |
+ |
+ |
53 |
Thiania bhamoensis Thorell, 1887 |
+ |
- |
- |
|
XI. Sparassidae |
|
|
|
54 |
Heteropoda venatoria (Linnaeus, 1767) |
+ |
+ |
+ |
55 |
Olios milleti (Pocock, 1901) |
+ |
- |
- |
|
XII. Tetragnathidae |
|
|
|
56 |
Leucauge decorata (Blackwall,
1864) |
+ |
- |
+ |
57 |
Tetragnatha viridorufa Gravely, 1921 |
+ |
- |
- |
58 |
Tylorida striata (Thorell,
1877) |
+ |
- |
+ |
|
XIII. Theridiidae |
|
|
|
59 |
Nesticodes rufipes (Lucas, 1846) |
+ |
- |
+ |
60 |
Propostira quadrangulata Simon, 1894 |
+ |
- |
+ |
|
XIV. Thomisidae |
|
|
|
61 |
Strigoplus netravati Tikader,
1963 |
+ |
- |
+ |
62 |
Thomisus projectus Tikader, 1960 |
+ |
- |
+ |
63 |
Thomisus pugilis Stoliczka,
1869 |
+ |
- |
+ |
M—Monsoon (June–November) | W—Winter
(December–January) | S—Summer (March–May).
Table 2. Families, genera, species, and functional
guilds of spiders collected from cashew orchards of Cashew Research Station, Madakkathara, Kerala.
|
Family |
Number of genera |
Number of species |
Guild structure |
1 |
Araneidae |
11 |
17 |
Orb-web builders |
2 |
Cheiracanthiidae |
1 |
2 |
Foliage runners |
3 |
Clubionidae |
2 |
2 |
Foliage runners |
4 |
Corinnidae |
2 |
2 |
Ground runners |
5 |
Gnaphosidae |
2 |
2 |
Ground runners |
6 |
Hersiliidae |
1 |
1 |
Ambushers |
7 |
Lycosidae |
2 |
2 |
Ground runners |
8 |
Oxyopidae |
1 |
3 |
Stalkers |
9 |
Philodromidae |
1 |
1 |
Ambushers |
10 |
Salticidae |
20 |
21 |
Stalkers |
11 |
Sparassidae |
2 |
2 |
Foliage runners |
12 |
Tetragnathidae |
3 |
3 |
Orb-web builders |
13 |
Theridiidae |
2 |
2 |
Scattered line weavers |
14 |
Thomisidae |
2 |
3 |
Ambushers |
|
Total |
52 |
63 |
|
For
figures & images - - click here
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