Spiders: A Proficient Candidate in Practising IPM for Darjeeling Tea

Effect of pesticides in the crop fields is now well known. Tea is no exception to this. Idea behind the present study is to appreciate the biological potential of spiders against tea pests. The study area included 6 tea estates viz. Badamtam T.E., Ging T.E., Salim Hill T.E. (organic), Castleton T.E., Namring T.E., and Thurbo T.E. (conventional). Altogether 85 species under 52 genera distributed over 18 families could be recorded. These can broadly be categorized into 7 trophic groups. The decreasing order of the groups are Orb weavers (48.24%) > Ambushers (22.35%) > Ground dwellers (11.76%) ≥ Stalkers (11.76%) > Foliage hunters (9.41%) > Sheet web weavers (2.35%) > Space web builders (1.18%). Out of the total species encountered 4 species are new from the country, 2 from the state and 36 species from the study area. Based on the species richness, the decreasing order of the tea estates are BTE (61.18%) ˃ NTE (54.12%) ˃ GTE (51.76%) ˃ STE (42.35%) ˃ CTE (28.24%) ˃ TTE (25.88%). This leads to infer ‘organic tea system’ exhibits higher spider heterogeneity. Araneids and salticids are the dominant groups. Other than the Oriental representatives, Australian and Palaearctic are the next major groups. Nearly 32.94% of the species are found to be endemic.