Spiders (Arachnida: Araneae) of a wildlife and cattle savanna ranch in South-Western Zimbabwe /

Abstract

In order to contribute to spider diversity distribution records within Zimbabwe, spiders were sampled at a mixed wildlife and cattle ranch using pitfall traps and sweep-netting. Sampling was conducted from June 2017 to April 2018. A total of 2328 spiders representing 25 families, 94 genera, and 166 species were recorded. The most species-rich families were Salticidae (33 spp.), followed by the Gnaphosidae (28 spp.) and Lycosidae (20 spp.), while eight families were represented by a single species. Pitfall traps accounted for 1857 individuals overall, with the ground-dwelling fauna dominated by Stenaelurillus guttiger (37.86% of the total abundance). Sweep-nets accounted for 471 individuals overall, with the grass-dwelling fauna dominated by Thyene thyenioides (15.29% of the total abundance). The most abundant functional group was the free-living ground-dwellers (n = 1809, 77.71%), followed by free-living plant-dwellers (n = 266, 11.43%) and orb-web builders (n = 186, 7.98%). The current study contributes to the knowledge of a megadiverse group of predatory arthropods in the region.