RURAL SPIDER BIODIVERSITY ECOSYSTEMS DWELLINGS AS PROTECTING REFUGES TO IN NILE DELTA AGRO-

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Plant Protection Research Institute, Agriculture Research, Giza, Egypt.

Abstract

The visual search and hand picking sampling method was used to collect a
total of 168 individuals representing 12 families of spiders from dwellings of 3 villages
in Menoufiya Govemorate. The dominant families were : Salticidae 47 % of the
studied collected spiders, followed by Theridiidae and Pholcidae 13 %, Agelenidae
6.6 % and Miturgidae 6 %. The identified species of these families were: Hasarius
adansoni and Plexippus paykulli (Sa!ticidae), Theridion spp. (Theridiidae), Tegenaria
spp. (Agelendiae). The rare families obtained in this study were :Philodromidae,
Oecobiidae, Pisauriade and Filistatidae which represented by one or two individuals.
Four families of spiders were only found in dwellings habitat: Pholcidae, Pisauridae,
Oecobiidae and Filistatidae. Eight families of spiders occurred in both habitats,
dwellings and agroeco-systems, with considerable differences in percentages of
occurence. Hence farmer houses could be considered as protecting refuges to
spiders against ecological impacts such as intensive use of pesticides ..