THE FIRST RECORD OF THE ORDER PALPIGRADIDA (ARACHNIDA) IN ISRAEL AND THE OCCURRENCE OF ARACHNIDS IN SOILS OF MEDITERRANEAN PINE FORESTS

ABSTRACT

The presence of soil micro arthropod species has been surveyed in Allepo pine forests on Mount Carmel, Israel. A representative species of the order Palpigradida (Eukoenenia mirabilis) was found, the first record of a palpigrad species in Israel. Palpigradida comprise less than 0.07% of the total microarthropod fauna of the soil. Of the other arachnid orders recorded, Araneae and Pseudoscorpiones comprise 0.8 and 0.3%, respectively, whereas Acari with a calculated annual mean of 33,146 individuals/m² constitute 35% of the total microarthropod population. During the dry summer of the Mediterranean zone of Mount Carmel, there is a sharp decrease in the occurrence of other soil arthropods (from 192,500 to 12,750/m²) and only a mild decrease in the acarine fauna (from 53,000 to 21,000/m²).