Abstract
Urbanization filters arthropod communities and selects for species tolerant of urban conditions. Spiders are key generalist predators in urban ecosystems, but certain spider families are rare in cities compared to rural areas. The unique arthropod communities found in different tree species likely affects their ability to conserve spiders by providing different prey resources. If arthropods disperse from trees to plants growing below trees, the conservation benefits of the arthropod communities found in trees may also extend to plants growing beneath them. Certain urban tree species can host high densities of scale-insects and other arthropods that may provide important prey resources for spiders. To assess the conservation value of different arthropod communities in urban trees, we collected spiders from scale-infested and scale-uninfested trees and from shrubs under these trees. We also used hanging cup traps to collect spiders that fell from both tree types. Spider abundance was greater within, and in shrubs below, scale-infested compared to scale-uninfested trees. Scale-infested trees hosted more orb web weaving spiders than scale-uninfested trees. Shrubs under scale-infested trees hosted more hunting, orb web weaving, and space web weaving spiders than shrubs under uninfested trees. Our findings suggest that scale-infested urban trees, and the robust arthropod communities they support, conserve certain spider guilds, and these benefits extend to other plants in the landscape.
Implications for insect conservation: The ability of urban trees to conserve spider communities is in part attributable to the abundance of potential prey available within trees. Therefore, tolerating pests such as scale insects in urban trees can conserve spider communities both within trees and in shrubs planted below these trees.
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Data Availability
All data reported in this paper are available for download from the Dryad data repository at the following link: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.wh70rxws7.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Molly Carlson and Chandler Purser for assisting with field work and for sorting arthropod samples. We thank J. Christina Mitchell and Matt Bertone for providing advice on spider identification. We thank DeShae Dillard, Anders Huseth, Rebecca Irwin, and Clyde Sorenson for providing feedback on earlier versions of this manuscript. We would like to thank Kristi Backe and Elsa Youngsteadt for providing advice on statistical analyses. Finally we would like to thank the feedback provided by two anonymous reviewers which improved the quality of this manuscript.
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This research was funded by the United States Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture (award numbers: 2021-70006-35670, 2018-70006-28914, 2016-70006-25827) and by the Southern IPM Center (Project S21-008) as part of USDA NIFA CPPM RCP (Agreement No. 2018-70006-28884).
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CJW and SDF designed the experiments. SDF acquired grant funding. CJW conducted all field work, spider identification, statistical analysis, and wrote the manuscript. CJW and SDF edited the manuscript.
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Wilson, C.J., Frank, S.D. Scale insects contribute to spider conservation in urban trees and shrubs. J Insect Conserv 27, 479–492 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-023-00471-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-023-00471-1