Tag: spider

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Spider Monday

To help to celebrate Spider Monday, here are a few spider-related papers from the archives of the Journal of Entomological Society of British Columbia.

Bennett, R.G. 2001. Spiders (Araneae) and araneology in British Columbia. J. Entomol. Soc. Brit. Columbia 98:83-90.

A fantastic survey of everything spider in British Columbia. My favorite paragraph:

Large areas and many specific habitats of BC remain uncollected and no doubt many list additions are still to come, especially from northern areas and the deep south of Be. No effort has been made to produce a comprehensive, habitat-specific spider inventory for any area in BC. That new records can be made with relative ease is suggested by the following examples: hundreds of specimens of a gnaphosid previously only known from a couple of  Washington specimens turned up in a simple pitfall study in Burnaby (see cover of Journal of the Entomological Society of BC, Vol. 96, 1999), the first specimen of a new family record for Canada came from the carpet of a provincial government office (Bennett and Brumwell 1996), and a new species record for BC came from the bathtub of an Osoyoos motel (Bennett unpublished data) in 2001.

Bennett also quotes himself, writing in another excellent article that can be found here at the Biological Survey of Canada:

…spiders are ruthless storm troops in the matriarchal anarchy that is the arthropod  world: theirs is the most diverse, female-dominated, entirely predatory order on the face of  the earth. As such, spiders are key components of all ecosystems in which they live.

 

And, since I already linked to the 1999 spider cover, above, I should also link to a couple of others from the covers of the 2004 and 1993 issues.

 

Speaking of new records, there is this paper on a new spider family record in Canada:

Bennett, R.G. and Brumwell, L.J. 1996. Zora hespera in British Columbia: a new spider family record for Canada (Araneae: Zoridae). J. Entomol. Soc. Brit. Columbia 93:105-109.

That article also contains some helpful drawings of spider genitalia. In case you didn’t know, arachnologists and entomologists are into that kind of thing.

 

Of course, the only way that we’re ever going to know what lives in remote locales is to go and visit those places ourselves. Nothing beats boots on the ground. This paper covers just that type of work, surveying spiders in a part of the world that very few of us will ever see:

Slowik, J. 2006. A survey of the spiders (Arachnida, Araneae) of Chichagof Island, Alaska, USA. J. Entomol. Soc. Brit. Columbia 103:61-70.

 

Here is an addition to a checklist of the spiders of British Columbia. The addition points back to a previous revised checklist from 1984 that we have yet to get online in the JESBC archives. Here is the addition:

West, R.C., Dondale, C.D., Ring. R.A. 1988. Additions to the revised checklist of the spiders (Araneae) of British Columbia. J. Entomol. Soc. Brit. Columbia 85:77-86.

 

Species checklists (and regular updates) are vital for understanding biodiversity and monitoring shifts in diversity over time. Along with that, it is important to get down to the natural history of the individual species on those checklists. Each species is, in itself, several careers-worth of work… at least. This type of work is arguably even more important when human influences (e.g. agriculture) are present. Here is a paper that outlines the emergence times of a variety of arthropods, including a mixture of spider species, in pear orchards:

Horton, D.R. 2004. Phenology of emergence from artificial overwintering shelters by some predatory arthropods common in pear orchards of the Pacific Northwest. J. Entomol. Soc. Brit. Columbia 101:101-108.

 

Humans (and other factors) do indeed have massive effects on biodiversity. Unfortunately we often only notice those effects when we start to see the decline in the numbers of one species or another. This, of course, assumes that we are even taking notice of some of these small creatures that are so prevalent, but often so hidden from our literal or metaphoric view. This occasional paper published by the Entomological Society of British Columbia offers an extensive coverage of likely-or-actually-at-risk spineless animals in this province that often escape notice, but which provide many of the so-called “ecosystem services” that we all rely upon. There is a long list of spiders, starting on page 10:

Scudder, G.G.E.  1994. An annotated systematic list of the potentially rare and endangered freshwater and terrestrial invertebrates in British Columbia. Occasional Paper 2.

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Have a happy Spider Monday, and be sure to say hi to one of our eight-legged friends if you happen to come across one.

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Good news x 3

Most days environmental news is bleak to say the least. Truthfully, much of what’s going on is bleak. Species are going extinct at record rates. Climate change seems to be accelerating. Environmental degradation is having real effects on real people.

But even though the bad news is usually what makes it onto the evening news, there are bits and pieces of good news as well. And those deserve to be highlighted. So, let’s take a look at three of those today.

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A clawed cave spider: I always get excited when I hear about new species discoveries. That’s partly because it reminds me that no matter how much we think that we’ve figured out, there are still zillions of cool things out there that we have no clue about. We just need to look – sometimes in difficult places. In this case, the cool new find is a new species of spider, Trogloraptor marchingtoni. And not just a new species, but seemingly an entirely new family. If a new species is a big deal, a new family is an even bigger deal. By way of analogy ostriches, pelicans, and hummingbirds are each in separate bird families. So you might say that this newly discovered spider is approximately as different from other groups of spiders as those three groups of birds are from each other.

Trogloraptor is about 4 cm in diameter and lives mainly in caves and some old growth forests. It has substantial claws on its legs, but it is not clear what they are used for. And, now that we know about this creature there are a ton of other new and interesting things to find out as well. What will those discoveries be? Only time, and more hard work, will tell.

An (un)extinct snail: The Mobile River Basin in the southeastern United States is home to an amazing diversity of freshwater mollusks. Or perhaps it should be said that it was home to an amazing diversity of freshwater mollusks. After years of human influences, several dozen species are now extinct. However, in a recent survey of the snail fauna of the Cahaba River, researchers found a small population of a snail that has been thought to be extinct for decades. The snails can be bred in captivity and the authors of the linked research article point out several locations that may be suitable for reintroductions.

Monarch butterflies finally find protection: I’ll probably devote an entire post to monarch butterflies in the near future because they are so amazing. Briefly, these insects migrate across a huge swath of North America to a few very small wintering areas in forest groves the mountains of Mexico. So, entire populations that cover large chunks of geography in the summer are dependent upon a the survival of a few hectares of trees. Because of this, they are highly susceptible to deforestation in that region. Illegal logging has been impinging on these winter redoubts for decades. Removal of trees, even trees not used by the butterflies for roosting, allows more rain below the canopy. Wet butterflies are highly susceptible to winter cold.

The whole situation has been extremely dire in recent years. But now comes news that cooperative work between government, NGOs, private individuals, and the people who live near to the butterflies’ overwintering groves has almost completely eliminated illegal logging. Residents are now replanting trees in the butterfly groves and are working on developing a more robust ecotourism-based economy.

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Yes, there are spots of good news out there as well. It pays to look for them because we need to take the time to highlight these events and accomplishments. They are due in large part to the dedication and efforts of researchers and, as exemplified in the case of the monarchs, to the people who are most likely to be affected by the negative consequences of doing nothing.