Diversity and abundance of spiders in mango fields of Latur district, Maharashtra state

During this study, 361 spiders belonging to 6 families, 10 genera and 12 species were collected from 6 different sites in mango fields from Bhada village, Ausa taluka, Latur district. The most dominant family was Eresidae forming 76% of the whole collection. It was followed by Lycosidae 10%, Araneidae 6%, Salticidae 5%, Oxyopidae 2% and Sparassidae 1%. Guild structure analysis revealed 5 feeding guilds, namely orb web weavers, ground runners, stalkers, sheet web weaver and foliage runners. Environmental factors like seasonality, spatial heterogeneity, competition, predation, habitat type, environmental stability and productivity were observed to affect species diversity.