Abstract
Investigations were carried out on the species composition of spiders in different agricultural crops viz. red lentil, wheat and mixed vegetables (cabbage, carrot, potato, tomato, pea, black eyed beans) at Mangoli in district Nainital of Kumaun region of Uttarakhand, India. The sampling was done using handpicking, ground hand collection, aerial hand collection and sweep netting method. The investigation revealed the presence of 44 spider species belonging to 16 families and 33 genera. The most dominant species was Argiope pulchella comprises highest numbers of individuals (32) and most dominant family was Araneidae (9species). The highest number of individuals was observed from mix vegetable field (296) followed by wheat (209) and red lentil (181). Based on foraging behaviour, the collected spiders were classified into 7 ecological guilds and majority of collected spiders were orb weavers (37.73%). Diversity indices: Shannon-Weiner’s diversity and species richness of spiders were found to be higher in mixed vegetables crop (3.57, 6.67) followed by wheat (3.47, 6.36) and red lentil crop (3.40, 6.15), respectively.
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