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Vertical forest strata position and niche shifts between juvenile and adult spiders

2025-11-03Artigo de investigação Acesso aberto
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datacite.subject.fosCiências Naturais::Ciências Biológicas
datacite.subject.sdg15:Proteger a Vida Terrestre
dc.contributor.authorCosta, Ricardo
dc.contributor.authorCardoso, Pedro
dc.contributor.authorRigal, François
dc.contributor.authorBorges, P.A.V.
dc.contributor.editorMiller, Jeremy
dc.date.accessioned2026-01-21T15:54:09Z
dc.date.available2026-01-21T15:54:09Z
dc.date.issued2025-11-03
dc.description.abstractABSTRACT: Functional trait analyses have become a vital part of ecological and evolutionary research in recent years. Nevertheless, this progress highlights the persistent and significant gaps in our knowledge of species traits, a limitation known as the Raunkiæran shortfall. For spiders, the difficulty in properly identifying immature specimens has often contributed to discarding the contribution of these lifestages to intraspecific functional variability and community structure. Species microhabitat preferences along the vertical gradient in forest biomes are amongst the traits frequently unknown for spider juveniles, despite their relevance for multiple aspects of spiders' ecology. To bridge this knowledge gap, in this study, we used spider community data collected from the native forests on two islands belonging to the Azores Archipelago, a well-characterized and species-poor system ideal for trait-focused studies. Our goals were to compare the mean verticality and vertical range of adult and juvenile spiders belonging to different hunting guilds (hunters and web weavers) and ballooning propensity (frequent, occasional and rare ballooners). We did this using two-sample paired Wilcoxon signed rank tests and Kruskal–Wallis tests, followed by Dunn’s tests to check for differences in the variation of adult and juvenile verticality from species belonging to different functional groups. Across 22 species sampled at 16 sites on two islands, adult and juvenile spiders did not differ in their mean vertical position within the forest strata. Unexpectedly, however, adults occupied a significantly broader vertical range than juveniles, indicating greater habitat flexibility than anticipated. The pattern observed for vertical range remained when looking at the two hunting guilds considered (hunters and web-weavers), although, in the case of hunters, adults tended to have lower mean verticality than juveniles. Finally, for the three categories of ballooning propensity (frequent, occasional and rare), we observed that juveniles of rare ballooners had higher mean verticality, while, for all categories, these tended to have lower values of vertical range. Our findings show the importance of including juveniles in microhabitat studies, as well as how this seems to vary across functional groups. It is hoped that this study will serve as a valuable baseline to future research aiming to better incorporate immature life stages in spider community ecology, particularly as new standardised methodologies are developed to reliably associate juveniles with their adult forms.eng
dc.identifier.citationCosta, R., Cardoso, P., Rigal, F., & Borges, P. A. V. (2025). Vertical forest strata position and niche shifts between juvenile and adult spiders. Biodiversity Data Journal, 13, e171693
dc.identifier.doi10.3897/BDJ.13.e171693
dc.identifier.eissn1314-2828
dc.identifier.issn1314-2836
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10400.3/8787
dc.language.isopor
dc.peerreviewedyes
dc.publisherPensoft Publishers
dc.relationSLAND-BIODIV: Understanding biodiversity dynamics in tropical and subtropical islands as an aid to science-based conservation action - FCT-NETBIOME grant 0003/2011
dc.relationFCT MACDIV — Macaronesian Islands as a testing ground to assess biodiversity drivers at multiple scales - FCT-PTDCBIABIC/0054/2014
dc.relationFundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia - Biodiversa+ project BioMonI – Biodiversity monitoring of island ecosystems - BiodivMon/0003/2022
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
dc.subjectislands
dc.subjectMacaronesia
dc.subjectlaurissilva
dc.subjecttraits
dc.subjectontogeny
dc.titleVertical forest strata position and niche shifts between juvenile and adult spiderseng
dc.typeresearch article
dspace.entity.typePublication
oaire.citation.endPage23
oaire.citation.issuee167838
oaire.citation.startPage2
oaire.citation.titleBiodiversity Data Journal
oaire.citation.volume13
oaire.versionhttp://purl.org/coar/version/c_970fb48d4fbd8a85
person.familyNameCosta
person.familyNameCardoso
person.familyNameRigal
person.familyNameBorges
person.givenNameRicardo
person.givenNamePedro
person.givenNameFrançois
person.givenNamePaulo
person.identifier1634930
person.identifier829215
person.identifier.ciencia-id671C-4C00-FDFB
person.identifier.ciencia-id3118-EA4B-B8A3
person.identifier.ciencia-idE315-82D2-C35D
person.identifier.ciencia-idFA1A-C9CB-9C29
person.identifier.orcid0000-0002-6452-436X
person.identifier.orcid0000-0001-8119-9960
person.identifier.orcid0000-0001-6882-1591
person.identifier.orcid0000-0002-8448-7623
person.identifier.ridA-8820-2008
person.identifier.ridB-2780-2008
person.identifier.scopus-author-id36112709400
person.identifier.scopus-author-id55924714000
person.identifier.scopus-author-id7003533390
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relation.isAuthorOfPublicationd9716a90-cc3e-44d0-adc1-6933e3786278
relation.isAuthorOfPublication.latestForDiscoveryf9cb44e8-ef14-4a84-b784-c5a366594251

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