Diversity of Soil Macro Arthropods in the Arable Land of Cotton Zone, North Cameroon

Abstract

Arthropods constitute the most diverse and dominant species of biodiversity in terrestrial ecosystems. Despite this great abundance, our understanding of their ecological organization and diversity remains unknown in certain habitats. The present study aimed to evaluate the  diversity of soil macro-arthropods in the arable land of six localities in the arable land of cotton zone of Cameroon. For this purpose, collections of soil macro-arthropods were carried out using Barber traps and subpots for two consecutive years 2018-2019. During the entire duration of the study, nearly 33.423 soil macro-arthropods were collected belonging to 67 species divided into 11 orders and 27 families. After classification, the most abundant insect groups were Coleoptera (36.9%), Hymenoptera (33.5%), and Orthoptera (22.9%), while the groups of Neuroptera, Hemiptera and Isoptera practically a low level of relative abundance. The proportions of the different families of soil macro-arthropods sampled varies from one locality to another and three large families were in the majority: Formicidae (32.4%), Acrididae (19.5%) and Tenobrionidae (15.7%). Soil macro-arthropod samples collected in Kodek, Sanguere Njoï and Gashiga, respectively recorded the highest species richness as well as the Shanon-Weaver Diversity and Evenness index. In all the arable soils of the localities studied, the soil arthropods tend to have an Equidistribution of individuals and Equitability varies from 0.5 to 0.8. The soil macro-arthropods collected in the arable land of the cotton zone of North Cameroon were mainly phytophagous and saprophagous with a strong beneficial potential in these different ecosystems.