Diversity and distribution pattern of scorpions from the Ouarsenis massif (Tissemsilt, North-West Algeria)
Abstract
A. Chedad, M.A. Hammou*, H. Chelghoum, O.O. Amara, M. El-Bouhissi, W. Dahmani and S.E. Sadine
Ecological barriers such as mountains are among the important factors leading to fragmentation of the range of different species and the important cause of vicariance events. Ouarsenis massif (Tissemsilt, North-West Algeria) is an important protected forest of Atlas cedar (Cedrus atlantica M.) and other endemic species. This paper presents a preliminary study of scorpion diversity and assesses of this biodiversity change at this Mountain range along a gradient of many ecological descriptors including elevation, vegetation cover, slope and soil types. During the two years 2020 and 2021, we sampled more than 179 specimens of scorpions belonging to eight species under 2 genera distributed in 2 families. The family Buthidae is represented by Buthus tunetanus (relative abundance “RA”=47.49%), Buthus paris (RA=16.76%), Buthus apiatus (RA=1.12%), Buthus aures (RA=1.68%), and Buthus sp. (RA=1.12%). The family Scorpionidae is represented by Scorpio maurus (RA=25.14%), Scorpio punicus (RA=5.03%), and Scorpio sp. (RA=1.68%). The Shannon’s index (H’=2.71 bits) indicates that Ouarsenis massif region has a high level of scorpion diversity and the value of evenness (E=0.90) reflects the high equilibrium between the effectiveness of sampled species. The distribution of scorpions was studied by ecological descriptors when the main determinant of species distribution is the elevation and Soil types. The vegetation cover can be considered as an ancillary factor.