Occurrence and Seasonal Fluctuations of True Spider's Population Inhabiting Pomegranate Orchards in Assiut Governorate, Upper Egypt

Spiders are a significant predatory group across many agricultural crop systems. In Egypt, pomegranate is one of the most considerable fruit crops. Unfortunately, pomegranate fruits are attacked by a range of insect pests. These pests reduce the quality and marketing of pomegranate fruits. So, the present study focuses on identifying true spiders inhabiting economically important pomegranate orchards at Assiut.The pitfall trap method was conducted for a survey of two years (during the 2020 and 2021 growing seasons) to determine the composition and abundance of spiders' species in pomegranate plants in the experimental farm, Faculty of Agriculture, Assiut University, 31° 11' 21.4188'' E; “27° 10' 48.4824'' N”. The canonical corresponded analysis (CCA) is unimodal method to analyze the spiders' species community composition response to ecological factors. In total, 12 spider genera were identified from 11 families. Hogna ferox was the most dominant species which represented the highest number during the whole study period. The results of CCA in both growing seasons revealed that spiders' species community composition was mainly related to relative humidity, while wind velocity (W.V.MIN) had the slightest effect on the collected species.So, the main objective of this study is to discuss the functional response of environmental factors to the abundance of spiders' species as well as their effective role in integrated pest management (IPM) programs and achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs) particularly biodiversity goal for pomegranate orchards.