The spiders who came in from the cold
A sprawling study of spiders across northern Canada has turned up more than 100 species in provinces or territories where they had never before been recorded. The findings, by researchers from 91社区, provide a valuable new benchmark for monitoring biodiversity across Canada鈥檚 vast northern expanses.
Using traps to sample 12 selected sites from Labrador to the Northwest Territories, 91社区 PhD student Sarah Loboda and Prof. Chris Buddle collected 23,000 adult spiders representing more than 300 species. Their findings, published Sept. 20 in the Canadian science journal听贵础颁贰罢厂,听could help scientists track the effects of climate change in the Far North, which is expected to be disproportionately affected by global warming.
Ground-dwelling spiders are among the most diverse and abundant animals in the northern tundra. They are key predators of other insects; and they, in turn are prey for insect-eating birds that breed up north. 鈥淲e can鈥檛 begin to track effects of climate change without first knowing what species live where, Buddle says. 鈥淭his is what our work did.鈥�
The selected sites for sampling encompassed three broad 鈥渆coclimatic regions鈥� across northern Canada: arctic, subarctic and north boreal.
鈥淥ur work also showed that the Arctic Islands have a distinct community of spiders on them 鈥� different from the mainland,鈥� Buddle notes.鈥淭his has important conservation implications: we must pay attention to our most harsh, northern ecosystems when thinking about conservation of biodiversity.鈥�
The study was part of the听鈥� a project that spanned several years and focused on collecting insects and spiders from across northern Canada. It was inspired by the听, conducted from the 1940s to the 1960s, and the researchers returned to many of the same sites to collect samples.
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Funding for the study was provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
Source: Laboda S, and Buddle CM. 2018. 鈥淪mall- to large-scale patterns of ground-dwelling spider (Araneae) diversity across northern Canada鈥�.FACETS.
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