Abstract:
Trophic niche breadth and niche overlap of nine spiders including Pardosa timidula (Roewer, 1951), Hippasa olivacea (Thorell, 1887), Plexippus paykulli (Audouin, 1826), Oxyopes javanus (Thorell, 1887) (hunters), Leucauge decorata (Blackwall, 1864), Tetragnatha javana (Thorell, 1890), Neoscona mukerji (Tikader, 1980), Argiope aemula (Walckenaer, 1841) and Cyclosa spirefera (Simon, 1889) (web builders) inhabited in wheat fields of University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan were verified. Study was planned to know how the most abundant spiders of wheat are coexisted in terms of habitat and food resources. Evidences of predation in fields were used to compute the coefficients of niche breadth and niche overlap. Diet breadth values were approximately 1 to 2 times greater than the minimum, which specifies substantial differing degree of feeding specialization. All overlap values were <1.00 (range, 0.05-0.92), which indicated that each species had its own feeding niche in the wheat ecosystem. It was concluded that separation of guild members in microhabitat, high plasticity in their foraging patterns may results in reduced competition and coexistence. Thus, such abundantly found spiders are highly responsible to enhance their biological control potential in wheat agroecosystems.
Page(s):
107-111
DOI:
DOI not available
Published:
Journal: Pakistan Journal of Life and Social Sciences, Volume: 11, Issue: 2, Year: 2013
Keywords:
Spiders
,
Competition
,
Niche overlap
,
Niche breadth
,
Coexistence
,
Utilization curve