Species composition of shoreline wolf spider communities vary with salinity, but their diets vary with wrack inflow.
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Hambäck PA, Cirtwill AR, Grudzinska-Sterno M, Hoffmann A, Langbak M, Åhlén D
Ecol Evol 12 (12) e9701 [2022-12-00; online 2022-12-28]
Wolf spiders are typically the most common group of arthropod predators on both lake and marine shorelines because of the high prey availability in these habitats. However, shores are also harsh environments due to flooding and, in proximity to marine waters, to toxic salinity levels. Here, we describe the spider community, prey availabilities, and spider diets between shoreline sites with different salinities, albeit with comparatively small differences (5‰ vs. 7‰). Despite the small environmental differences, spider communities between lower and higher saline sites showed an almost complete species turnover. At the same time, differences in prey availability or spider gut contents did not match changes in spider species composition but rather changed with habitat characteristics within a region, where spiders collected at sites with thick wrack beds had a different diet than sites with little wrack. These data suggest that shifts in spider communities are due to habitat characteristics other than prey availabilities, and the most likely candidate restricting species in high salinity would be saline sensitivity. At the same time, species absence from low-saline habitats remains unresolved.
Bioinformatics Support for Computational Resources [Service]
NGI Stockholm (Genomics Production) [Service]
National Genomics Infrastructure [Service]
PubMed 36590338
DOI 10.1002/ece3.9701
Crossref 10.1002/ece3.9701
pmc: PMC9797640
pii: ECE39701
Dryad: 10.5061/dryad.gxd2547qk