The spider fauna of the Aladjagiola wetland complex (Nestos Delta, north-east Greece): a reflection of a unique zoogeographical transition zone in Europe

Abstract

In order to increase our arachnological knowledge of Greece, and in particular north-east Greece, an investigation of the arachnofauna of the Aladjagiola wetland complex was conducted from April to July 2008. The study area is part of the Nestos Delta in north-east Greece, and comprises an area of approximately 20 km 2 . Spiders were collected from 28 sites using pitfall traps. In all, 6694 specimens were sampled, including 206 species from 31 families. Altogether, 30 and 74 species were new to the districts of Greece and Macedonia, respectively. A number of faunistically interesting species were recorded during the study:

Contrasting beta diversity of spiders, carabids, and ants at local and regional scales in a black soil region, northeast China

“…Landscape complexity, with a mosaic of the various ways land has been utilized, has increased recently in the black soil region in northeast China (Zhang et al, 2015). Therefore, the diverse mosaics with different nonagricultural and non-urban landscape types potentially provide refugia, and a large regional species pool for arthropods (Vergnes et al, 2014), and this has been proven for species richness and composition of carabids and spiders in other studies (Schroder et al, 2011;Zhang et al, 2015;Vergnes et al, 2014;Mader et al, 2017). As already remarked earlier (Landis, 2017), we suggest that that there be more focus on landscape dynamics, fragmentations, and the landscape mosaic at regional scales.…”

“…They argued that some unmeasured spatially structured variables at the regional scale were significant but had not been taken into account. Land-use practices (Gaigher and Samways, 2014), their duration at each site (Eggleton et al, 2005), and landscape complexity (Schroder et al, 2011) affect ground arthropod compositions at the regional scale. Landscape complexity, with a mosaic of the various ways land has been utilized, has increased recently in the black soil region in northeast China (Zhang et al, 2015).…”

Habitat structure determines spider diversity in highland ponds

“…The high dissimilarity observed between habitat types demonstrates the importance of using spiders as a model group for assessing wetlands diversity (Schroeder et al 2011). The turnover component of beta diversity was higher than the nestedness component between ponds with low and high heterogeneity habitats.…”

Description of New Ground Spider Species (Gnaphosidae, Araneae) from Mainland Greece

“…is the fourth species of this genus recorded from Greece and it was found on a single site near Evros river, in North-East Greece. Among other species within this genus, C. caucasius (L. Koch, 1866) and C. solstitialis (Levy, 1998) are widespread in the country [20], while C. gracilis was solely recorded from Nestos Delta until now [21]. In this paper, the presence of the latter species is expanded to include many areas in northern Greece, from far East (Evros) to far West (Florina) and many different habitats, such as grasslands, riverine marshes, oak forests, shrublands and maquis, but mostly open areas.…”