Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 March
2018 | 10(3): 11493–11494
A
preliminary but incomplete checklist of Gujarat spiders
R.V. Vyas1 & B.M. Parasharya2
1 1 - Shashwat Apartment, 23 Anandnagar
Society, BPC Road, Alkapuri, Vadodara, Gujarat
390007, India
2 Vishrut Park 1/18, Jitodia Road, Anand, Gujarat
388001, India
1 razoovyas@hotmail.com
(corresponding author), 2 parasharya@yahoo.com
doi: http://doi.org/10.11609/jott.3886.10.3.11493-11494
Date of publication: 26 March 2018 (online & print)
Manuscript details: Ms # 3886 | Received 04 November 2017
Citation: Vyas,
R.V. & B.M. Parasharya (2018). A
preliminary but incomplete checklist of Gujarat spiders. Journal of Threatened Taxa 10(3): 11493–11494; http://doi.org/10.11609/jott.3886.10.3.11493-11494
Copyright: © Vyas & Parasharya 2018. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
License. JoTT allows unrestricted use of this
article in any medium, reproduction and distribution by providing adequate
credit to the authors and the source of publication.
The authors of
the paper Yadav et al. (2017) should be congratulated
for taking up this herculean task of compilation and documentation of existing
information about the spider fauna of Gujarat State. Additional data generated through fresh
survey during 2014-15 have enriched the checklist and distribution records
within the state. On careful
reading of this paper, we found that there are certain mistakes in the paper
and omissions of certain published information. We draw attention of the authors and
readers here to rectify the errors and prepare a fresh checklist.
The authors claim
that there are 415 species belonging to 169 genera of 40 families. Out of these, 29 genera and 17 families
are endemic to Gujarat. There is,
however, no mention of which species/genera/family are endemic to Gujarat in
the entire paper. If conclusions
about endemism are correct, the authors have failed to highlight importance of
Gujarat in spider species endemism.
The authors claim
to have recorded 149 species belonging to 99 genera during their survey 0f
2014-15 but Table 3 shows that at least 45 species are identified only up to
the genus level. When such species
are added into the checklist, it is presumed that they could be a new species
to science.
The authors have
shown eight agro-climatic zones of Gujarat which have been
adopted from the Department of Agriculture and Cooperation, Government
of Gujarat but the source for the same is not given. After looking at Map 1 and Table 1, one
realizes that the zone numbers in the map and in the table do not match! Whether such a gross mistake is by the
web site of Government of Gujarat or by the authors remains unknown. The zone names, sites covered and
dominant flora shown in Table 1 appears to be of the authors and not of the
Government website and hence it gives wrong information to the readers. The source of the content of Table 1
should have been mentioned clearly as the dominant flora and spider diversity
shown here appears irrelevant.
Evidences suggest that the authors are confused about the names of the
agro-climatic zones (Table 1) and the numbers they have given on the map
1. According to the authors, ÔThe
highest spider records were from the northwestern zone, which consists of Panchmahal and VadodaraÉÉ.Õ.
According to the Table 1, the north-west zone is 8
where as Panchmahal and Vadodara falls under zone 3,
middle Gujarat. The same
mistake is repeated in Table 2 as most potential zone 2, 6 and 7 have very low
numbers of species, which is not possible.
The Kachchh (Kutch) District – the second largest district
of the country is climatically arid and located on the northwestern part of the
state. Unfortunately, Kachchh District is not mentioned anywhere in Table 1.
All studies
referred into this publication, except a few studies (Kumar & Shivakumar 2004; Trivedi 2009)
were conducted in non-cultivated area.
In spite of this, published records were classified into agro-climatic
zones. Normally,
occurrence/distribution of animal or plant species is viewed with respect to
the bio-geographic zones (Darlington 1980).
Omission of published information
In this paper,
three unpublished Ph.D. Thesis of M.S. University of Baroda and one from Sardar Patel University are referred. The authors have not referred to the
works carried out at other universities.
The fact is that there are several Ph.D. Thesis submitted to M.K.
Bhavnagar University (under the guidance of Dr. B.H. Patel & S.K. Patel),
South Gujarat University and several M.Sc. Dissertations, which are not
referred to. Had they been
referred, several more species could have been added to the list.
Several published
records are not referred in this paper, though some of them were published in
reputed journals (Vasava et al. 2015; Parasharya & Pathan 2013; Parasharya et al. 2015; Parmar et
al. 2014) and several other papers available on internet
too. Unfortunately, one publication
of M.S. University on spiders of Gir forests (Parikh
et al. 2008) is also not referred.
Other comments
The authors have
referred Ôstandard taxonomic literatureÕ, however, they have not mentioned
which classification/ checklist of spiders was followed for this
compilation. One wonders why
updated checklist of the Indian spiders by Siliwal et
al. (2005) was not referred. Under
the family Araneidae, Argiope arcuata Simon, 1874 (Sr.no.9) is mentioned. This seems to have come from the Ph.D.
Thesis of Patel (1971). Siliwal et al. (2005) do not
separately list A. arcuata in their
list; instead only A. lobata is listed and A. arcuata is shown as synonym of A. lobata (Pallas, 1772).
One expects the latest version of the classification accepted by the
Indian researchers.
One wonders why Anonymous (2009) was referred by the authors for compiling
present checklist!
Authenticity of such a compilation becomes doubtful when it is published
as anonymous! In
fact, this publication was largely based on several unpublished reports of GEER
Foundation (Gandhinagar) on the spider fauna of
protected areas of Gujarat by late Dr. B.H. Patel. One wonders why those original reports by
Dr. Patel were not referred by the authors as citations of those reports are
already available in Parasharya & Vyas (2013). In
their compiled list, Anon. (2009) had not shown the source reference from where
the species is added. In that case,
such publication canÕt be considered as reliable.
There are certain
mistakes in quoting published information. For Sr. no. 339, Plesiophrictus millardi Pocock, 1899, credit was given
to Parasharya et al. (2011) when Parasharya
et al. (2011) had identified it up to the genus level only. Moreover, when Parasharya et al. (2011) was referred by the authors,
record of Ischnocolus decoratus of Theraphosidae family at Sadad Devi forest (in the same publication) was not taken
note of. At least three specimens
were collected for identification.
This and similar issues may be there with several other publications
referred by the authors which need to be taken care.
Looking to so
many problems in this published paper; it appears that the present checklist
needs drastic improvement for its acceptance. We wish that keeping the above points in
view, if the checklist is revised, it will serve as a
standard and acceptable checklist of the spiders of Gujarat for future
researchers.
References
Anonymous (2009). Introduction to Spider
Diversity of Gujarat. Forest Department, Gujarat. 94pp.
Darlington, P.J., Jr. (1980). Zoogeography: The Geographical Distribution of
Animals. Krieger Publishing Company,
Florida, U.S.A.
Kumar, D. & M.S. Shivakumar
(2004). Ecological studies on spiders in Rice
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Parasharya, B.M., R.V. Vyas &
B.H. Patel (2011). First authentic
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comments on the distribution of Theraphosidae spiders
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