“SLOW SCIENCE” RENAISSANCE: UNDERSTANDING THE ECOLOGY, NATURAL HISTORY AND DEMOGRAPHY OF A HIGHLY ENDEMIC MYGALOMORPH SPIDER FROM ARGENTINA

NELSON FERRETTI; CAROLINA GUERRA; JUSTINA PANCHUK; MICAELA NICOLETTA

Montevideo

Congreso; 22nd International Congress of Arachnology; 2023

International Society of Arachnology

“Slow science” approaches to understanding many aspects of the biology of species havedeclined over recent decades, despite the critical importance of these studies to conservationbiology. This approach has been recently developed to study the natural history of an endemicand threatened mygalomorph spider from Australia in order to address future conservationissues. Here, we present a “slow science” study to unveil the demography, ecology and naturalhistory of a potentially threatened species of migid trapdoor spider from mountainousgrasslands in central Argentina. Calathotarsus fangioi Ferretti, Soresi, González & Arnedo,2019 (Migidae) have a highly fragmented distribution in the eastern mountainous belt(Tandilia) from Buenos Aires province, in a landscape largely cleared for agriculture, livestockand tourism. The conservation significance of Mygalomorphae has long been recognized, andthese spiders remain a flagship group for terrestrial invertebrate conservation in manycountries. By studying growth rates, life spans, recruitment, natural history, dispersal and otheraspects of population and individual health, we aim gradually to uncover the populationdynamics of a discrete natural population. In this work, we summarize natural history data fora parcel of 98 individual trapdoor spiders marked initially following 44 months of monitoringand highlight preliminary demographic trends and biological observations related withreproductive period, courtship behavior, egg sacs and dispersion.