Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION AND FUNCTIONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SOIL ARTHROPODS IN SUPER WET TROPICAL RAIN FOREST, INDONESIA

Fenky Marsandi, Hermansah, Agustian and Syafrimen Yasin

Abstract

The Soil arthropods is an interesting thing to identify their existence, distribution and characteristics of several types of super wet tropical rain forest. This group is the main bio indicator with the highest amount of species among other soil fauna groups. This research was done on several types of super wet tropical rain forest area including natural forests, open area, mixed garden, and mono-culture farming. Retrieving sample was done by using pitfall traps and hand sorting. The analysis and identification of soil arthropods there were 20 orders, 125 families and 305 morpho species in the area of super wet tropical rain forest. Distribution of soil arthropods in each type of land has a uniform and clustered tendency, where the distribution value of all land types is <1 and more than> 1, which means that all soil arthropods in the super wet tropical rain forest area are spread uniformly and clustered. While the characteristics of soil arthropods in super wet tropical rain forest areas are the phytophagous, saprophagous, predatory and parasitoid scattered on each type of land, where each type of land is dominate by predatory arthropod groups. Types of forest land and mixed garden have characteristics of soil arthropods that are more diverse than other types of land. Functionally, with the dominance of individual predator groups in each type of land the super wet tropical rain forest area shows that the balance of the ecosystem of the area is still maintained. However, in terms of species diversity, functional soil arthropods in open area types and mono culture farming dominated by the phytophagous group indicate that the condition of the land has begun to be disrupted and has the potential for continuous pest attacks on these types of land. Thus it can be concluded that the distribution and characteristics of soil arthropods are determined by the characteristics and management of the area.