SPIDER DIVERSITY AND ECOLOGY IN DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENTS IN A HILL SYSTEM OF PAMPA BIOME

MANUEL CAJADE; ALVARO LABORDA; DAMIAN HAGOPIAN; POMPOZZI, GABRIEL; MIGUEL SIMÓ

Congreso; 22nd International of Arachnology; 2023

Environmental complexity can drive spider diversity and guilds distribution among differentenvironments in the landscape. The aim of this study was to describe and compare the spidercommunities of hillside forests (HF), riparian forests (RF) and natural grasslands (G) of a hillssystem of southeastern Uruguay, and to evaluate the influence of environmental complexity ofthese communities. Samplings were carried out in 100 m transects using pit-fall traps, G-Vacaspirator and manual collection. We also measured environmental variables at each collectingsite. Spider abundance and species richness was higher in G, followed by HF and RF.Environments were different in terms of their specific composition, but with a certain degreeof overlap (ANOSIM, R = 0.3874; p = 0.0001). In HF, foliage runners (FR) abundances werepositively correlated with mulch depth, space-weavers (SpW) with canopy density, sheetweavers(ShW) with canopy density and plant cover, and ground hunters (GH) with plant cover.In RF, orbicular-weavers (OW) were positively correlated with canopy density and plantrichness; while SpW, ShW and GH with plant cover. In G, abundances of FR and GH werepositively correlated with plant richness, while ambushes (A) and SpW with mulch depth. Ourresults bring new knowledge about spider communities in native forests and natural grasslandsof the Pampa biome, which highlight the influence of the environmental variables in thestructure. This study constitutes a potential tool to the management, assessment andconservation of these natural environments. Financial support PAIE (CSIC, UdelaR).