A Study on Diversity of Spiders at Malavagoppa Village, in Shimoga District, Karnataka

Abstract

Spiders belong to the order Araneae which is the largest order among the class Arachnida. Spiders are considered as indicators of overall species richness and the health of terrestrial communities. The village with different plantations harbors a good number of spiders. The survey was carried out from February 2018 to January 2019 by using active searching, beating, leaf sampling and net sweeping techniques. During the study, a total number of 51 species belonging to 42 genera of 16 families were documented. In the present study it was found that the family Araneidae was dominated by having 14 species followed by the family Salticidae having 12 species and the least were from Clubionidae, Corinnidae, Eresidae, Gnaphosidae, Hersiliidae, Linyphiidae, Sparassidae, Theridiidae and Uloboridae with a single species from each family.