Seasonal diversity, distribution and abundance of Araneae in the Thattekkad Bird Sanctuary, Kerala, India

The aim of the present study was to analyze the diversity of spiders across various parts of the Thattekkad Bird Sanctuary, Kerala, a tropical, semi evergreen, low-land forest located between the tributaries of the Periyarriver. Survey of the spider fauna was carried out for a period of twelve months. In total, 3286 individuals were collected from the sanctuary, which consist of 89 species of spiders under 59 genera and 18 families. Araneidae was the most abundant family. The most abundant species was Hippasa agelenoides of Lycosidae family. Spiders belonging to six feeding guilds, i.e., orb - web weavers, stalkers, ground runners, scattered line weaver foliage runners and ambushers were identified. Relative abundances of spider community strongly differed with the pre-monsoon, monsoon and post monsoon seasons. Seasonal diversity indices of Margalef richness index, Pielou’s evenness index, Shannon-Wiener and Simpson index were calculated.