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Unexpected sensitivity of the highly invasive spider Mermessus trilobatus to soil disturbance in grasslands.

ABSTRACT: The dwarf spider Mermessus trilobatus (Araneae: Linyphiidae), native to North America, has expanded its range over large parts of Europe within less than fifty years. It is notable for occurring in a wide range of mostly agricultural habitats, while most other invasive spiders in Europe are associated with human buildings. As in other invasive invertebrates and plants, the tremendous colonisation success of Mermessus trilobatus might be related to anthropogenic habitat disturbance. Here we aim to test if the invasion success of Mermessus trilobatus in Europe is associated with high tolerance towards soil disturbance. We sampled spiders from eight grasslands experimentally disturbed with superficial soil tillage and eight undisturbed grasslands without tillage. Opposite to our expectation, Mermessus trilobatus densities decrease sharply with soil disturbance. This is in contrast to several native species such as Oedothorax apicatus, which becomes more abundant in the fields after superficial soil tillage. Our study suggests that invasion success of Mermessus trilobatus is not connected to a ruderal strategy. The ecological and evolutionary processes behind colonisation success of Mermessus trilobatus need to be further investigated.

SUBMITTER: Narimanov N

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7801346 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Unexpected sensitivity of the highly invasive spider Mermessus trilobatus to soil disturbance in grasslands.

Narimanov Nijat N Kempel Anne A van Kleunen Mark M Entling Martin H MH

Biological invasions 20200907 1

The dwarf spider Mermessus trilobatus (Araneae: Linyphiidae), native to North America, has expanded its range over large parts of Europe within less than fifty years. It is notable for occurring in a wide range of mostly agricultural habitats, while most other invasive spiders in Europe are associated with human buildings. As in other invasive invertebrates and plants, the tremendous colonisation success of Mermessus trilobatus might be related to anthropogenic habitat disturbance. ...[more]

PMID: 33488272

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Project description:Beta-diversity, defined as spatial replacement in species composition, is crucial to the understanding of how local communities assemble. These changes can be driven by environmental or geographic factors (such as geographic distance), or a combination of the two. Spiders have been shown to be good indicators of environmental quality. Accordingly, spiders are used in this work as model taxa to establish whether there is a decrease in community similarity that corresponds to geographic distance in the grasslands of the Campos & Malezales ecoregion (Corrientes). Furthermore, the influence of climactic factors and local vegetation heterogeneity (environmental factors) on assemblage composition was evaluated. Finally, this study evaluated whether the differential dispersal capacity of spider families is a factor that influences their community structure at a regional scale. Spiders were collected with a G-Vac from vegetation in six grassland sites in the Campos & Malezales ecoregion that were separated by a minimum of 13 km. With this data, the impact of alpha-diversity and different environmental variables on the beta-diversity of spider communities was analysed. Likewise, the importance of species replacement and nesting on beta-diversity and their contribution to the regional diversity of spider families with different dispersion capacities was evaluated. The regional and site-specific inventories obtained were complete. The similarity between spider communities declined as the geographic distance between sites increased. Environmental variables also influenced community composition; stochastic events and abiotic forces were the principal intervening factors in assembly structure. The differential dispersal capacity of spider groups also influenced community structure at a regional scale. The regional beta-diversity, as well as species replacement, was greater in high and intermediate vagility spiders; while nesting was greater in spiders with low dispersion capacity. Geographic distance, among other factors (climate, and active and passive dispersion capacity), explains assembly structure and the decrease spider community similarity between geographically distant sites. Spiders with the highest dispersal capacity showed greater species replacement. This may be due to the discontinuity (both natural and anthropic) of the grasslands in this ecoregion, which limits the dispersal capacity of these spiders, and their close dependence on microhabitats. The dispersal capacity of the least vagile spiders is limited by geographic distance and biotic factors, such as competition, which could explain the nesting observed between their communities.

Dataset Information

Unexpected sensitivity of the highly invasive spider Mermessus trilobatus to soil disturbance in grasslands.

Publications

Unexpected sensitivity of the highly invasive spider <i>Mermessus trilobatus</i> to soil disturbance in grasslands.

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