Diversity and Distribution of Spider Fauna at Baby John Memorial Government College Campus Chavara, Kollam District, Kerala

The present work deals with the diversity of spiders found within the Baby John Memorial Government College campus in Chavara, Kollam. An investigation into the spider fauna was conducted for six months from January to June 2024. A total of 40 spider species belonging to 27 genera and 15 families were collected from the study site, totalling 286 individuals. The Family Araneidae was the most prevalent (25 %), followed by Oxyopidae (12.5%), Salticidae and Pholcidae (10%) respectively. Less common species included spiders belonging to families Philodromidae and Pisauridae (7.5%). Eight feeding guilds of spiders, i.e., Ambushers, ground dwellers, scattered line weavers, stalkers, orb-web weavers and space web builders were identified. Diversity indices were computed, including the Simpson, Shannon-Wiener, Pielou's evenness, and Margalef richness indices. The diversity calculated by Shannon Weiner’s index in different sites was 2.302 (Site 2), 2.244 (Site 3), 2.156 (Site 4) and 1.633 (Site 1). The evenness is higher in Site 1(0.8529) compared to other sites, 0.8325 (Site 2), 0.7855 (Site 4), 0.7703 (Site 3). The Simpson indices value was higher in Site 2 with 0.8848 value as compared to Site 3 with 0.8648 value, Site 4 with 0.8578 value and Site 1 with a value of 0.778. Berger-Parker index revealed the relative dominance of the species. The value of Berger-DBP (0.333) showed dominance is less but diversity is greater in Site 2 than Site 1 (0.1852), Site 3 (0.25) and Site 4 (0.2667). The study results provide a preliminary data for spiders on the College Campus and indicating a diverse variety of spider species in this campus.