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Vol. 49 No. 4, 2010
Mygalomorph Spiders of the Natural and Historical Reserve of
Martín García Island, Río de la Plata River, Argentina
Nelson
Ferretti1,*, Fernando Pérez-Miles2, and Alda
González1
1Centro
de Estudios Parasitológicos y de Vectores CEPAVE (CCT- CONICET- La
Plata) (UNLP), Calle 2 N° 584, (1900) La Plata, Argentina
2Facultad de Ciencias, Sección Entomología,
Montevideo, Uruguay. E-mail:myga@fcien.edu.uy
Nelson
Ferretti, Fernando Pérez-Miles, and Alda González (2010) Martín
García I. is located in the upper La Plata River, at the outlet of the
Uruguay River, northeastern Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. Due
to its status as a protected area, it is imperative to know the
biological diversity that is intended to be preserved.
Mygalomorph spiders have life-history characteristics that parallel
general characteristics of well-studied taxa that are “extinction
prone”, either at the population or species level. We analyzed
the abundance and distribution in space and time of mygalomorph spiders
at the specific level. We also offer some comments of
distributional patterns in a geological context. Spider
abundances were sampled from Mar. 2004 to Nov. 2006 by hand-capture and
pitfall traps in 5 different ecological areas. To determine the
habitat preference of the species, we used the Kruskal-Wallis one-way
ANOVA test. Species of the Mygalomorphae occurring on Martín
García I., Actinopus sp.
(Actinopodidae), Catumiri
argentinense (Theraphosidae), Stenoterommata
platensis (Nemesiidae), and Xenonemesia
platensis
(Microstigmatidae) were distributed among all habitats, with 1
specialist in only 1 habitat type. Xenonemesia platensis showed a
restricted distribution possibly influenced by the geological history
related with the Río de la Plata Craton as for S. platensis. Other
distributional patterns may have been affected by more-recent
transgressions and regressions of the sea through the Río de la Plata
River.
Key words: Argentinean island, Biogeography,
Diversity, Mygalomorphae, Neotropical.
*Correspondence: E-mail:nferretti@conicet.gov.ar
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