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Intraguild interactions between spiders and ants and top-down control in a grassland food web

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Abstract

In most terrestrial ecosystems ants (Formicidae) as eusocial insects and spiders (Araneida) as solitary trappers and hunters are key predators. To study the role of predation by these generalist predators in a dry grassland, we manipulated densities of ants and spiders (natural and low density) in a two-factorial field experiment using fenced plots. The experiment revealed strong intraguild interactions between ants and spiders. Higher densities of ants negatively affected the abundance and biomass of web-building spiders. The density of Linyphiidae was threefold higher in plots without ant colonies. The abundance of Formica cunicularia workers was significantly higher in spider-removal plots. Also, population size of springtails (Collembola) was negatively affected by the presence of wandering spiders. Ants reduced the density of Lepidoptera larvae. In contrast, the abundance of coccids (Ortheziidae) was positively correlated with densities of ants. To gain a better understanding of the position of spiders, ants and other dominant invertebrate groups in the studied food web and important trophic links, we used a stable isotope analysis (15N and 13C). Adult wandering spiders were more enriched in 15N relative to 14N than juveniles, indicating a shift to predatory prey groups. Juvenile wandering and web-building spiders showed δ15N ratios just one trophic level above those of Collembola, and they had similar δ13C values, indicating that Collembola are an important prey group for ground living spiders. The effects of spiders demonstrated in the field experiment support this result. We conclude that the food resource of spiders in our study system is largely based on the detrital food web and that their effects on herbivores are weak. The effects of ants are not clear-cut and include predation as well as mutualism with herbivores. Within this diverse predator guild, intraguild interactions are important structuring forces.

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Acknowledgements

We thank David H. Wise (Kentucky), Matthias Schaefer, Herbert Nickel, Sonja Migge (all Göttingen), Eike Gentsch (Bremerhaven) and two anonymous referees for valuable discussions and comments on the manuscript. We are grateful to Sharon Cooper, Terence Kleian, Tristan Ernsting (Göttingen) for linguistic corrections. Gerald Moritz (Halle) and Klaus Hövemeyer (Göttingen) provided valuable comments on the biology of thrips and dipterans. Ingke Rachor (Wien) and Martin Schmidt (Bern) provided essential help concerning the field experiment. The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft financially supported this study.

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  1. Ecology Group, Institute of Zoology, Anthropology and Developmental Biology, Georg-August University of Göttingen, Berliner Str. 28, 37073, Gottingen, Germany

    Dirk Sanders & Christian Platner

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  1. Dirk Sanders
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Correspondence to Dirk Sanders.

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Communicated by Sven Bacher.

Appendices

Appendix 1

Table 4 Phyto-sociological record of the five different blocksa in July 2002
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Appendix 2

Table 5 Arthropod taxa referred to in Fig. 4, with values and standard deviations of δ13C and δ15N
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Sanders, D., Platner, C. Intraguild interactions between spiders and ants and top-down control in a grassland food web. Oecologia 150, 611–624 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-006-0538-5

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