Diversity of Spider Fauna in P.S.M.O. College Campus, Tirurangadi Malappuram, Kerala, South India

Spiders are most diverse, female-dominated and entirely predatory order in the arthropod world. They are the most permeating predators in both agricultural and natural ecosystem. They serve as indicator of environmental quality and as biological control agents in agricultural ecosystem. Hereby we report the Diversity of spider fauna in P.S.M.O. college campus, Tirurangadi, Malappuram, Kerala. The study was conducted during the period of six month from September 2019 to February 2020. Total 25 species were reported and belonging to 7 families. The reported families are Araneidae, Lycosidae, Oxyopidae, Philodromidae, Pholcidae, Salticidae and Tetragnathidae. Among the seven families, Salticidae is the dominant family comprising 7 species. The second dominant families are Oxyopidae and Tetragnathidae comprising 5 species each, followed by Araneidae with 4 species, Pholcidae with 2 species and Lycosidae and Philodromidae with 1 species. The family Salticidae represents most prominent family (28 %) followed by Oxyopidae and Tetragnathidae (20 %) each, Araneidae (16 %), Pholcidae (8 %) and Lycosidae and Philodromidae (4 %) each. The relative abundance of the family represented the order Salticidae greater than Oxyopidae = Tetragnathidae greater than Araneidae greater than Pholcidae greater than Lycosidae = Philodromidae.