Spider diversity in different habitats at Jaintia Hills of Meghalaya
Keywords:
Spider, species diversity, Jowai, Jaintia Hills, MeghalayaAbstract
Large scale destruction of the forest habitat along with the expansion of urban area may affect the distribution pattern of different spider species. Hence a study was conducted from January to April, 2017 to find out the distribution of spider in different habitats at Jowai area in Jaintia Hills of Meghalaya, India. For this, five numbers of quadrat each with 50m X 50m was plotted in forest, shrub habitats and five numbers of houses, and different techniques were followed. Once spider was sighted, they were photographed and then released immediately. Data was collected in three consecutive days alternately for 9 days per month during morning and evening hours. Data analysis was done using the Shannon-Wiener Diversity Index and Pielou’s Evenness Index. Study found 24 species of spider belonging to 10 families in Jowai area of Meghalaya. Family Araenidae was represented by the highest number of spider. Web spider was dominant (45%) in comparison to other in terms of number. Species diversity was 2.17 and evenness was 0.7 which further indicates the abundance of different species in different habitats. Interestingly, more number of spiders was found in the forest area in comparison to shrubs and human habitation. This clearly indicates that conversion of the forest land into urban habitat leads into variation in distribution and abundance of spider in this area.
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