Impacts of female body size on cannibalism and juvenile abundance in a dominant arctic spider ...
1. Body size influences an individual’s physiology and the nature of its intra- and interspecific interactions. Changes in this key functional trait can therefore have important implications for populations as well. For example, among invertebrates, there is typically a positive correlation between...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Dataset |
| Language: | English |
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Dryad
2020
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.dz08kprtz https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.dz08kprtz |
| Summary: | 1. Body size influences an individual’s physiology and the nature of its intra- and interspecific interactions. Changes in this key functional trait can therefore have important implications for populations as well. For example, among invertebrates, there is typically a positive correlation between female body size and reproductive output. Increasing body size can consequently trigger changes in population density, population structure (e.g., adult to juvenile ratio), and the strength of intraspecific competition. 2. Body size changes have been documented in several species in the Arctic, a region that is warming rapidly. In particular, wolf spiders, one of the most abundant arctic invertebrate predators, are becoming larger and therefore more fecund. Whether these changes are affecting their populations and role within food webs is currently unclear. 3. We investigated the population structure and feeding ecology of the dominant wolf spider species (Pardosa lapponica) at two tundra sites where adult spiders ... : Field sampling Wolf spider communities were sampled from two arctic tundra sites, Toolik (68°65′N, 149°58′W) and Imnavait (68°62′N, 149°30′W) in the summer of 2012. The sites are 10.4 km apart in the northern foothills of the Brooks Range, Alaska, near Toolik Lake Field Station. At each site, we sampled wolf spiders two weeks, one month, and two months after snowmelt had occurred (Table S1 contains the dates of sampling, spring snowmelt, and fall snow accumulation during the study year). At two weeks and one month past snowmelt, we sampled each site using pitfall traps placed one meter apart on a grid of 10 x 10 meters. Due to concerns about depleting the local population and potential low sample sizes during the later part of the season, at two months past snowmelt, we sampled adjacent areas at each site using four 5 x 5 meter grids of pitfall traps; each grid was separated by at least thirty meters. Thus at each sampling time point, there were 100 pitfall traps per site. Pitfall traps contained 75% ethanol ... |
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