Litter arthropod population in tropical dry evergreen forests of India

A study on litter arthropod population was carried out in four tropical dry evergreen forests distributed two each in inland (sites KR & MM) and coastal (sites KK & OR) areas of peninsular India. A 1-ha plot (100m × 100m) was established in all the four sites. At each site, arthropod samples were carefully collected from ten 15cm × 15cm random samples along with litter materials in polythene bags. A total of 549 individuals representing 13 taxa were recorded. Shannon diversity index (H’) was maximum for site KR (0.811), followed by sites OR, KK and MM. The abundance of litter arthropod was high for inland sites (282 individuals) than costal sites (267 individuals), and among the four sites, site MM had greater value followed by sites KK, KR and OR. Single factor ANOVA revealed that abundance of arthropod did not vary significantly between the four sites (F_(3,48) = 0.017, p > 0.05). T-test also showed that there was no significant difference in arthropod abundance between the inland and coastal sites (t₍₁₃₎ = 0.266, p > 0.05). Overall, Araneae, Hymenoptera, Blattodea, Hemiptera and Isoptera dominated litter arthropod abundance of the tropical dry evergreen forests of peninsular India.