This paper is a study of diversity and seasonal abundance of soil inhabiting arthropod fauna and their interrelationships with the edaphic factors like temperature, moisture and pH in flower garden, vegetable garden and uncultivated area dominated by weeds in Ramakrishna Mission Ashrama Campus, Narendrapur, South - 24 Parganas, West Bengal. The soil arthropods were collected with the help of Berlese-Tullgren funnels. Altogether, 591 arthropods belonging to 7 different groups viz., Acarina, Arachnida, Collembola, Coleoptera, Diptera, Hymenoptera and Psocoptera were extracted from each of the three plots every month during the entire survey period (August 2018 – July 2019). Microarthropod abundance was found to be greater in uncultivated areas (266 individuals) as compared to that of the flower and vegetable gardens where different agronomic practices are adopted and traditional means of garden nurturing viz. tilling, raking, weeding, etc. are followed. Of the total population in all three plots, mites were the most dominant group (37.06%), followed by ants (25.21%) & springtail (19.29%) populations. Soil arthropods populations are greater in the monsoon season (227 individuals), followed by premonsoon (188 individuals) & postmonsoon (176 individuals).
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.