Biotemas (May 2005)
Araneofauna of the leaf litter in two areas of restinga forest in Capão do Leão, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Abstract
The soil spider fauna of a restinga forest in Capão do Leão, Rio Grande do Sul, southern Brazil, was inventoried for a year. Samples were taken in the sandy restinga forest and in the ecotone, monthly, on two 30 m-long transects. Biological material was sampled with 30x30 cm quadrats, four for each transect and eight per monthly sample, with all leaf litter in the quadrats also being collected. Over the 12 samples, dry litter weighed 11.88 kg. Of a total of 96 quadrats, we calculated an annual average of 130.1 spiders/m2. The samples yielded 1124 individuals, of which 335 were adults and 788 were immature, distributed in 26 families with the highest representativity in the Oonopidae (19.57%), Lycosidae (18.06%), Theridiidae (17.08%) and Salticidae (10.68%) categories. Forty-four morphospecies were distinguished, the most abundant being Euryopis sp. (13.26%) and Guaraniella sp. (12.8%). The month with the highest number of individuals was February 2001 (170 spiders) and the one with the lowest number was July 2001 (37 specimens). Between the two transects, more spiders were found in the sandy restinga forest Araneofauna de serapilheira em mata de restinga (629 spiders) than in the ecotone (495 individuals). The species richness index was 7.39 and the estimated species richness at 53.87 morphospecies.
