Vorų (Arachnida: Araneae) įvairovės tyrimai Čepkelių rezervate

• Main Author: Slavickas, Dalius
• Other Authors: Biteniekytė, Marija
• Format: Bachelor Thesis
• Language: Lithuanian; English
• Published: Institutional Repository of Vilnius University 2017
• Subjects: taiga
• Online Access: http://vu.lvb.lt/VU:ELABAETD35836704&prefLang=en_US

Spider (Arachnida: Araneae) Diversity in Čepkeliai Nature Reserve Spiders are a relatively poorly studied group of arthropods, that have a high ecological value and potential as bioindicators. That‘s why studies on spiders are gaining increasing attention in Lithuania and neighboring countries. For this study, Čepkeliai nature reserve was picked. It contains one of the largest raised bogs in Lithuania and many valuable habitats surrounding it. Based on the European Habitats Directive classification seven different habitats within the reserve were selected. In Lithuania, most of the habitat and species assemblage studies on spiders were done using pitfall trapping, and thus to increase the number of species caught and to acquire a more complete picture of the assemblages species composition, a combination of three methods was used – pitfall trapping, sweeping with net and vegetation beating. In total 1700 adult spider individuals from 116 species and 19 families were collected and identified. Method analysis revealed clear differences in caught species composition and effectiveness of these methods, which varied between locations. Sweeping and beating methods provided a fraction of individuals, yet contributed to finding numerous unique species. The wet deciduous forest is shown to be a habitat where sweep net and beating methods are notably superior to pitfall trapping. For later analysis two assemblages are differentiated, the epigeic and the upper vegetation layers assemblages. The studied habitats and assemblages were analyzed with a number of species richness indexes, and the most valuable habitats and assemblages were identified. The richest are west taiga epigeic, wet deciduous forest upper vegetation and the sum raised bog spider assemblages. The similarities between locations and their assemblages were also investigated. Different similarity groups were identified between assemblages in different vegetation heights. Three new species for Lithuanian fauna of spiders were identified. Based on the newest scientific publications, taxonomic changes in the World Spider Catalog and the data of this study, the Lithuanian spider checklist was updated and now contains 460 species from 30 families.