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Abstract. The responses of gnaphosid spiders to an urbanization gradient (urban-suburban-rural areas) were studied using pitfall traps in and near the city of Heraklion, in Crete, Greece, from October 2010 to October 2011. Our results indicate that richness and abundance of species of spiders decreased from the rural area to the center of the city, but not significantly so. Temporal beta diversity was significantly higher in urban areas, which indicates a high temporal variability in species composition of gnaphosid assemblages in the center of the city that takes the form of complementary rather than synchronized phenologies of co-occurring species, as expected in habitats degraded by high levels of disturbance. There was no specific pattern in the body size distribution of the gnaphosids along the urban-rural gradient, and thus the decrease in mean body size with increase in urbanization hypothesis was not supported by our results. However, the species composition recorded in urban areas was very different from that in suburban and rural areas. The percentage of individuals in the catches that were generalist species differed significantly along the gradient. As generalist gnaphosid species made up 72.01% of the total caught in the center of the city, and only 9.53% and 2.07% in suburban and rural areas respectively, our results support the opportunistic species hypothesis. Our analyses indicate that Urozelotes rusticus, a well known synanthropic species recorded for the first time in Greece, is an indicator of high levels of urbanization in Heraklion.

Berinda is a small genus of the family Gnaphosidae (Araneae) known only from the East Mediterranean. Up to now three species were known, namely B. amabilis Roewer, 1928, B. ensigera (O.P.-Cambridge, 1874), and B. aegilia Chatzaki, 2002, all recorded from the Greek islands (B. amabilis is also recorded from Uzbekistan and Turkey) and the mainland (B. ensigera). In this paper we revise the genus adding new records of the previously recorded species and a new synonymy for B. ensigera (Haplodrassus grazianoi Caporiacco, 1948) and describe two new species, one found on the island of Cyprus, B. cypria Chatzaki & Panayiotou n.sp., and one found in Kayseri, Central Anatolia, Turkey, B. hakani Chatzaki & Seyyar n.sp., thus leading to a total of five species included in this genus.

Global urbanization is a major force that causes alteration and loss of natural habitats. Urban ecosystems are strongly affected by humans and there is a gradient of decreasing human influence from city centers to natural habitats. To study ecological changes along this continuum, researchers introduced the urban-rural gradient approach. The responses of centipedes to an urbanization gradient (urban-suburban-rural areas) were studied using pitfall traps in and near the city of Heraklion, in the island of Crete, Greece, from November 2010 to November 2011. Our results do not support the intermediate disturbance hypothesis, in which suburban areas located in the transitional zone between urban and rural habitats failed to indicate significant increase in terms of species richness and diversity.

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