Habitat separation in a species‐rich assemblage of jumping spiders (Araneae: Salticidae) in a suburban study site in Zimbabwe

Abstract

A 40-species assemblage of jumping spiders inhabiting a small (0.6 ha) tropical suburban study site in Zimbabwe was studied over 4 years. It was hypothesized that marked habitat separation is one of the critical factors permitting the close coexistence of so many species from the same family (Salticidae). The 25 most common salticids (i.e. species with 10 or more records) were found to occupy six primary habitat types: tree trunks (with three salticid species), tree leaves (two species), shrubs (five species), walls (three species), low herbaceous plants and grasses (three species) and ground and litter (six species). The remaining three species, termed habitat generalists, frequented three or more of these habitats. Finer-scale microhabitat separation was also recorded in many species. The remaining 15 less common species (i.e. < 10 records) could not be assigned to particular habitats with certainty. Twenty-one (84%) of the 25 common salticids showed a significant association with a single primary habitat type. Three-quarters of species were present for 3 or 4 years of this 4-year study. It was concluded that the narrow spatial niches occupied by most species, combined with the numerous microhabitats within the site, were conducive to the highly diverse salticid assemblage. Attention is drawn to the problems of long-term sampling of such a small area without undue disturbance to the fauna. The impacts of long-term weather cycles on habitats, ephemeral niches, age-dependent use of habitats, inter-and intraspecific associations of individuals within habitats, and the relationship between suburban and wild habitats are discussed. Suburban environments, by providing a wide range of microhabitats, can support a high diversity of salticid species and thus contribute to their conservation.

Step back! Niche dynamics in cave-dwelling predators

“…Harwood et al, 2003;Cumming and Wesolowska, 2004;Entling et al, 2007;Michalko and Pek ar, 2015) suggests that in epigean ecosystems the coexistence of spiders is often mediated by niche partitioning and/or filtering. With respect to subterranean ecosystems, this topic has been considered by Novak et al (2010), who demonstrated that M. menardi and Metellina merianae (Scopoli) (Araneae, Tetragnathidae) avoid competition by differentiating their predatory strategies and by partitioning their temporal niche.…”

Niche partitioning and niche filtering jointly mediate the coexistence of three closely related spider species (Araneae, Philodromidae)

“…The filtering in microand mesohabitats does not necessarily follow habitat preferences automatically because of vertical and horizontal stratification (Cumming & Wesolowska, 2004). The filtering in microand mesohabitats does not necessarily follow habitat preferences automatically because of vertical and horizontal stratification (Cumming & Wesolowska, 2004).…”

Ground spider assemblages (Araneae: Gnaphosidae) along an urban-rural gradient in the city of Heraklion, Greece

“…Most studies on the effect of urbanization on arthropods are on carabid beetles and butterflies with fewer on ants, bees, moths and flies (McKinney, 2008 and references therein). Though spiders are dominant components of the arthropod predatory guild (Wise, 1993) and have proved to be good bioindicators of anthropogenic disturbance (Maelfait & Hendrickx, 1998), there are only a few studies on their response to urbanization (Fraser & Frankie, 1986;Miyashita et al, 1998;Alaruikka et al, 2002;Cumming & Wesołowska, 2004;Shochat et al, 2004;Magura et al, 2010). This study focuses on ground spiders (Araneae: Gnaphosidae), one of the largest spider families, which mainly includes fastmoving epigean nocturnal hunters, that are best collected using pitfall traps (Chatzaki, 2008).…”