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Abstract
Volume 6, Issue 2, April Issue - 2018, Pages:386-395 |
| Authors: M. Jalloh, E.A. Osekre, R. Adu-Acheampong, G. Dumbuya |
| Abstract: In Ghana, several farm management practises are employed by cocoa farmers to control insect pests in cocoa farms. In present study, four plots of the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana, New Tafo-Akim, Ghana, were monitored for four months (October 2014 – January 2015) to determine the impact of farm management practices on abundance and richness of soil arthropods within the litter and 0-10 cm depth of the soil. Berlese funnel extraction method was used for the extraction of the litter and soil arthropods. From each of the plots, soil surface litter was collected from five randomly selected spots from a 0.3 X 0.3 m quadrat. The soil was collected using a PVC Core sampler with a diameter of 76.2 mm and height 10 cm. Soil arthropods in the taxa Collembola, Acarina, Hymenoptera, Araneae, Diptera, Coleoptera, Blattaria and Myriapoda were collected from the litter and soil of the studied quadrats. Among these, Collembola, Acarina and Hymenoptera constituted the most abundant while Araneae and Blattaria were collected in less numbers. The use of herbicides as a farm management practice to control weeds had significant effect on Collembola, Acarina and Araneae in the litter and on Diptera and Myriapoda in the soil. The soil physicochemical parameters (soil pH, soil moisture content and soil hydrocarbon) had no significant effect on the abundance and richness of soil arthropods. However, soil pH within the farm management system was observed to have a significant effect on the richness and abundance of soil arthropods. |
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