o C76 . -T» 1 i ■.-\ .-£. Vol. 81, pp. 197-208^ 30 August 1968 I AUG t ^ 1968 JPROCEEDINGS V / ^ # OF THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON AN ECOLOGICAL STUDY ON VALLEY-FOREST SPIDERS FROM NORTHERN KENTUCKY By Branley A. Branson and Donald L. Batch^ Department of Biological Sciences, Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond, Kentucky As far as can be discerned no one has compared the spider faunas of relict vs disturbed forest regions in the Cumberland Mountains. A number of studies have been carried out on the ecology of soil arachnids in forests (Gasdorf and Goodnight, 1963; Elliot, 1930; and others) and several taxonomic lists are available for certain forested regions, such as that of Jones (1940), but such lists are not available for any Kentucky locality. The Study Area: The Cumberland Mountains of Kentucky offer widely variable habitats, certain parts of them representing some of the oldest undisturbed habitat in North America. Parts of the Red River Drainage in the northern part of the state are of this nature. Particularly instruc-tive are some tributary canyon systems of the middle fork of the stream, lying in Wolfe and Powell counties. In this region, the authors have commenced a long-term ecological analysis, special emphasis being accorded the Arachnida, Chilopoda, Diplopoda and MoUusca. In the canyon systems alluded to, the valley floors are mostly underlaid by undifferentiated Mississippian rocks, whereas the valleys themselves are incisions through the much interdigitated Lee Formation, directly underlaid by the Breathitt Formation; the latter is exposed on the floors. The Breathitt Formation consists primarily of gray, micareous siltstones, gray, subgraywacke sandstone, dark and light claystones containing some ironstone concretion, some limestone (sparse), chert and coal. The rugged, narrow valleys with steep cliffs are supported by this formation. The overlying Lee Formation forms even more massive cliffs, from 200 to 300 feet high (vertical), and consist mostly of resistant sandstone and siltstone, relatively Uttle clay, ironstone and limestone being present. The canyon systems here considered head approximately % mile 1 Supported by Eastern Kentucky University faculty grant 5-3-372-6. ' 24— Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash., Vol. 81, 1968 ( 197 )
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