Effect of urbanization on ground-dwelling spiders
Abstract
Effect of urbanization on ground-dwelling spiders was studied along a rural-suburban-urban forest gradient in Debrecen in 2009. Pitfall traps were used for sampling from the middle of April to the end of October fortnightly. The following hypotheses were tested: increasing disturbance hypothesis, matrix species hypothesis, opportunistic species hypothesis, and habitat specialist hypothesis. As a result of urbanization that the urban forest patches become drier and more open. It was assumed that the number of xerophilous species and light-preferring species are increasing from the rural sites to the urban ones. The overall species richness increased significantly toward the urban habitat type, contradicting the increasing disturbance hypothesis. The results verified both the matrix and opportunistic species hypotheses, as the number of the open-habitat species and the generalist species were higher in the urban park, than in the rural and in the suburban sites. Species richness of the forest specialist spiders was significantly higher in the suburban area. The species richness of both the xerophilous and light-preferring species was the highest in the urban area, supporting the xerophilous and the light-preferring species hypotheses.
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