The Arthropoda of the Soil in a West African Pasture

Indies (Dammerman 1925, 1937, Strickland 1945, 1947). Only one piece of research has been done in tropical Africa, and that in East Africa (Salt 1952). Apart from the more obvious soil fauna such as termites, ants and other microfauna living in the soil which have been observed by collectors, no observations on West African soil arthropods have been made. Nothing is known of the vertical, horizontal or seasonal distribution and variation of the smaller forms. Work has, therefore, been started in an attempt to gather some information about one particular area in the Gold Coast, the Accra plains. This paper contains the results of the first part of this work. It is an attempt to find the vertical distribution of the various groups of the arthropods in pasture soil throughout the dry and wet season, i.e. from December 1953 to May 1954.