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Biogeographic patterns of spiders in coastal dunes along a gradient of mediterraneity

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Abstract

The Iberian Peninsula is recognized for its high levels of species richness, rarity and endemicity. Our main aim was to study biogeographic patterns of spiders in coastal dunes along a gradient of mediterraneity. Distance-decay of similarity, nestedness and co-occurrence metrics were used to explore spider’ distribution patterns. A similarity analysis was performed in order to obtain a hierarchical classification of sites. Indicator species analysis was conducted to identify indicator species for the various clustering levels of the site typology. The differentiation among assemblages was further explored by non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) and analysis of similarities (ANOSIM). Assemblages’ similarity among sites decreased with climatic/geographic distance. The observed values of nestedness metrics (T and NODF) were not significant, while the co-occurrence metrics (C-score and Checkerboard units) were higher than expected by chance. Cluster analysis showed that spider’ assemblages were structured along a gradient from North to South, forming four geographically distinct clusters. ANOSIM tests and NMDS supported the biogeographic patterns identified by cluster analysis. Several indicator species were found for the different levels of the hierarchic site typology. Spider assemblages revealed a high degree of biogeographical structure along the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The coast is a “biogeographic crossroad”, encompassing faunistic elements of different origins. The hierarchic typology of sites is generally consistent with the major biogeographic regions and the thermoclimatic belts recognized for the region. Our results indicate that the climatic gradient and historic factors played a key role in the current spiders’ biogeographic patterns.

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Acknowledgments

We are acknowledged to José António Barrientos, Carmen Urones and Stano Pékar for their help with the taxonomic identification of some spider specimens and to Robert Bosmans and Hisham El-Hennawy for their contribution to identify Mediterranean species that occur in Northern Africa. J.C.C. express his gratitude to the Luso-American Foundation for its support (FLAD CandT Links 2010 grant). P.C. is supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (SFRH/BPD/40688/2007).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CBMA – Molecular and Environmental Centre, Department of Biology, University of Minho, Gualtar Campus, 4710-057, Braga, Portugal

    José C. Carvalho & Pedro Gomes

  2. Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC, USA

    Pedro Cardoso

  3. Azorean Biodiversity Group – CITA-A, University of Azores, Angra do Heroísmo, Portugal

    Pedro Cardoso & Luís C. Crespo

  4. Department of Biology, University of Évora, Évora, Portugal

    Sérgio Henriques & Rui Carvalho

Authors
  1. José C. Carvalho
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  2. Pedro Cardoso
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  3. Luís C. Crespo
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  4. Sérgio Henriques
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  5. Rui Carvalho
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  6. Pedro Gomes
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to José C. Carvalho.

Appendices

Appendix 1

See Table 3.

Table 3 Location and climatic characteristics of the studied sites: mean annual precipitation (P), precipitation of the least rainy month (Pmin), precipitation of the most rainy month (Pmax), mean annual temperature (T), mean temperature of the coldest month (Tmin), mean temperature of the hottest month (Tmax) and summer drought (number of months where Pmonth < 2Tmonth)
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Appendix 2

See Table 4.

Table 4 List of species for each site (nomenclature according to Platnick 2010)
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Carvalho, J.C., Cardoso, P., Crespo, L.C. et al. Biogeographic patterns of spiders in coastal dunes along a gradient of mediterraneity. Biodivers Conserv 20, 873–894 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-011-0001-8

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