Functional diversity of epigeal spiders in the olive grove agroecosystem in northeastern Portugal: a comparison between crop and surrounding semi‐natural habitats

Abstract

The olive grove agroecosystem (Olea europaea L., Oleaceae) encompasses a series of relevant economic and cultural activities throughout the Mediterranean basin. Olive trees and groves are considered important repositories of biodiversity (Rouini, 2008), housing many arthropods (Coutinho, 2007). The community of terrestrial arthropods in olive groves is highly diverse and positively influences the maintenance of fundamental ecosystem services, such as pest limitation (Torres, 2007;Santorufo et al., 2012). The larvae and pupae of an important olive pest, the olive fruit fly, Bactrocera oleae (Rossi) (Diptera: Tephritidae), develop in the soil. The larvae drop from the canopy, then bury themselves in the soil, and after development, the teneral adults emerge. During this time in the soil, B. oleae is exposed to predation by ground-dwelling organisms (Picchi et al., 2017). This pool of organisms includes Acari, Chilopoda, Collembola, Dermaptera, Diplopoda, Hemiptera, Isopoda, Malacostraca, Orthoptera, spiders (Arachnida: Araneae) (e.g., Lycosidae and Gnaphosidae), and various families of Coleoptera (e.g., Carabidae, Staphylinidae, and Elateridae), encompassing polyphagous species that are considered potential natural enemies of key olive pests (Santos et al.,

Insight into Trophic Interactions of Spiders in Olive Groves with Integrated and Ecological Pest Management Using DNA Metabarcoding

“…Generally, the analyzed spiders revealed a broad variety of prey, belonging to 12 distinct taxonomic orders of arthropods. The identified MOTUs were consistent with findings from our DNA barcoding-based biodiversity assessment of local fauna [58], as expected given their prevalence and abundance in agricultural ecosystems [59]. The six types of prey detected that made up over 79% of the overall diet of spiders were Hymenoptera, Diptera, Lepidoptera, Coleoptera, Araneae, and Orthoptera, which are common types of prey in similar spider guilds in pome fruit orchards [3,14] or cabbage and cauliflower farms [2,60], but in different relative frequencies.…”

Foliage and ground spiders respond differently to a semi‐natural habitat‐vineyard gradient

“…Clearly, ground species adapted to the native shrublands (semi-arid zone) colonize the edge of the vineyard, but not farther -inside the vineyard they are replaced by another group of spiders such as the lycosids. A similar pattern was found in Mediterranean olive orchards (Kubiak et al, 2022). In our study, this might be explained by the conditions on the ground.…”

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Changes in land-use usually result in landscape simplification which has a negative effect on biodiversity and natural pest suppression (Muneret et al, 2018). Semi-natural habitats (SNHs; non-crop vegetation) surrounding crop habitats are very important sites as reservoirs of diversity and abundance of several groups of natural predators (Pompozzi et al, 2019;Serée et al, 2020;Kubiak et al, 2022) and may act as a source of natural enemies for recolonization after disturbances within crops. For this reason, establishing or retaining natural vegetation in and around crops in order to diversify agroecosystems has been recognized as an effective approach to increase natural enemies and enhance pest control (Holland et al, 2016).The potential of SNHs to increase predators' abundance varies across geography and cropping systems.

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