a study on faunestic, and biodiversity and population dynamics of edaphic millipedes (diplopoda) during different seasons in semeskandeh forests, mazandaran province, iran

the present study was carried out during a one year period in 2012-2013 in order to investigation of seasonal density and diversity of diplopoda in a hyrcanian forest (semeskandeh forest) in northern iran. for these purpose, some forest soil sampling were done in two mounth intervals and the samples were collected from leaf litter (ol,f,h), the 0-3 cm and 3-6 cm of soil layer (ah). a total of 7 species belong to 3 order, 5 family and 6 genera were collected and identified from semeskandeh forest. in this study two species (leptoiulus sp. nov. and amblyiulus sp. nov.) be found for the first time for the fauna of the world. leptoiulus sp. nov. are the most abundant species and cylindroiulus treptoflagellum (read, 1992) are less dominant. the highest abundance of diplopoda was observed in leaf litter and 0-3 cm in summer. also abundance of diplopoda was low in deep layer of soil (3-6 cm) in spring. additionally, diversity of diplopoda indicated that species diversity was highest in autumn in leaf litter and there was low species diversity in winter in deep layer of soil. in total, species diversity and population density of diplopoda in leaf litter was higher than deeper layers (3-6 cm) of soil. according to this study, diplopoda are potentially one of the main factors in food chain in hyrcanian forests and our results show the importance of biodiversity conservation and management of natural resources of this area.