Occurrence, Distribution and Morphological Description of 11 Species of Endemic Giant Pill-Millipedes of the Genus Arthrosphaera (Diplopoda: Sphaerotheriida: Arthrosphaeridae) in Southern India
The endemic giant pill-millipedes belonging to the genus Arthrosphaera has a long history of occurrence and distribution in the Indian Subcontinent. According to the earlier and recent records, up to 40 species of Arthrosphaera are confined to southern India and Sri Lanka. Being detritus feeders, they are sensitive to narrow range of abiotic factors and their population is dwindling due to severe human interference especially landscape modification or modern forestry/agricultural practices. There is an urgent need to update the status, occurrence and distribution in distinct ecological conditions of pill-millipedes in southern India as they are important component in organic matter decomposition as well as nutrient turn over in the forests or plantations. Based on recent surveys, the present study attempts to update occurrence, distribution and morphological description (light and scanning electron microscopy) with a diagnostic key for identification of 11 species of pill-millipedes occurring in the Western Ghats of India with commentary on their distribution pattern in different ecological conditions and impact of edaphic factors.
Observations on pill-millipedes of the Western Ghats (India).
This paper deals with general information on the distribution, ecology, bioconversion, systematics, conservation and highlights the gaps in our knowledge on the rare and endemic pill-millipedes belonging to the genus Arthrosphaera of the Western Ghats of India. So far about 50 morphospecies of Arthrosphaera have been reported from India and Sri Lanka. Arthrosphaera showed restricted distribution and endemic to specific geographic locations of the Western Ghats due to limited dispersal ability and they are rare in west coast locations. They invade organically managed plantations in the Western Ghats and their biomass was positively correlated with soil moisture, soil organic carbon and soil calcium. However, their richness was higher in the forests than plantations due to accessibility to heterogeneous organic matter. Four Arthrosphaera spp. maintained on the mixed leaf litter diet under laboratory conditions showed 75% survival at the end of 12 months. Arthrospaherapossess good ability of conversion of decomposed leaf litter in to organic manure in the form faecal pellets. Systematics of Arthrosphaera currently based mainly on morphology and a few studies dealt with chromosome and molecular biology. As these pill-millipedes are sensitive to narrow spatial scales, their occurrence or invasion of a specific location denotes improved soil qualities. Based on the ex situ maintenance, pill-millipedes serve as good candidates for compost production using biodegradable solid wastes. Strategies necessary for ex situ and in situ conservation of pill-millipedes have been suggested.
Comparative Caryological Studies on Gonoplectus malayus and Phyllogonostreptus nigrolabiatus (Diplopoda: Myriapoda)
The Diplopoda have been an obscure group of the Myriapoda from the cytolo gical point of view. Although a number of workers like Tuzet and Bessiere (1941 and 1943), Bessiere (1948), Nath and Sharma (1952), Tuzet, Bessiere and Manier (1954) and Kalla (1969) have studied the cytoplasmic inclusions of the millipedes, our knowledge about the chromosomes of this group is limited to only fourteen species worked out by Oettinger (1909), Sokoloff (1914), Bessiere (1948), Natarajan (1959) and Chowdaiah (1966 a, b, c and 1967). The diploid number of chromo somes reveals a great variation in these species (Table 5). From the existing literature, it is obvious that much is yet to be done about the chromosomes of the Diplopoda. The present investigations on two species of the millipedes viz., Gonoplectus malayus and Phyllogonostreptus nigrolabiatus were, therefore, undertaken to add a little more to the cytology of this group.