TY - GEN A1 - Birkhofer, Klaus A1 - Djoudi, El Aziz A1 - Schnerch, Benjamin A1 - Michalko, Radek T1 - Climatic conditions and functional traits affect spider diets in agricultural and non-agricultural habitats worldwide T2 - Ecography N2 - Spiders are dominant predators in terrestrial ecosystems and feed on prey from the herbivore and detritivore subsystem (dual subsystem omnivory) as well as on other predators (intraguild predation). Little is known about how global change potentially affects the importance of different prey groups in predator diets. In this meta-analysis we identify the impact of climatic conditions, land-use types and functional traits of spider species on the relative importance of Hemiptera, Araneae and Collembola prey in spider diets. We use a dataset including 78 publications with 149 observational records of the diet composition of 96 spider species in agricultural and non-agricultural habitats in 24 countries worldwide. The importance of Hemiptera prey was not affected by climatic conditions and was particularily high in smaller spider species in agricultural habitats. Araneae prey was most important for actively hunting, larger spider species in non-agricultural habitats. Collembola prey was most important for small, actively hunting spider species in regions with higher temperature seasonality. Spider species with a higher importance of Araneae prey for their diet also had higher importances of Collembola and lower importances of Hemiptera prey. Future increases of temperature seasonality predicted for several regions worldwide may go along with an increasing importance of Collembola prey which also related to a higher importance of intraguild prey here. Two global change drivers predicted for many regions of the world (increasing climatic seasonality and ongoing conversion of non-agricultural to agricultural land) both hold the potential to increase the importance of Collembola prey in spider diets. The importance of Hemiptera and Araneae prey may however show contrasting responses to these two drivers. These complex potential effects of global change components and their impact on functional traits in spider communities highlight the importance to simultaneously consider multiple drivers of global change to better understand future predator–prey interactions. KW - alternative prey KW - biological control KW - climate change KW - intraguild predation KW - land-use change KW - predator–prey interactions Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.06090 SN - 1600-0587 IS - 3 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Damptey, Frederick Gyasi A1 - Opuni-Frimpong, Emmanuel A1 - Ayine Nsor, Collins A1 - Addai, James A1 - Kwame Debrah, Daniel A1 - Schnerch, Benjamin A1 - Bentsi-Enchill, Felicity A1 - Korjus, Henn T1 - Taxonomic and community composition of epigeal arthropods in monoculture and mixed tree species plantations in a deciduous forest of Ghana T2 - Journal of Forestry Research N2 - Tropical forests provide several ecosystem services and functions and support approximately two-thirds of the world’s biodiversity but are seriously threatened by deforestation. Approaches to counteract this menace have revolved around aforestation with several or a single tree species. We thus investigated how plantation forests with either a single or several tree species infuenced arthropod taxonomic and community composition using pitfall traps to sample selected groups of epigeal arthropods (Araneae, Coleoptera, Orthoptera and Hymenoptera) and with environmental variables assessed simultaneously. Our results revealed 54 taxonomic groups with signifcantly higher taxonomic richness, activity density, and diversity in the mixed stands than in the monoculture stands. The significant differences in community composition were mainly driven by families including Lycosidae, Formicidae, Staphylinidae, Scotylidae, Hydrophilidae, Gryllidae and Scarabaeidae and were explained by distinct habitat characteristics (canopy openness, litter depth, deadwood volume, and tree height). While the diverse tree communities and heterogeneous vegetation structure ofered food and habitat resources for diverse arthropod groups, the allelopathic nature coupled with homogenous stand characteristics of the Tectona grandis stands in the monoculture suppressed the growth of understorey vegetation that could otherwise serve as food and habitat resources for arthropods, which might have led to limited activities and diversity of arthropods in the monoculture plantation stands. The fndings thus highlight the need to promote mixed tree plantations in degraded tropical areas, especially when restoring biodiversity is the prime management focus. KW - Arthropod community KW - Forest plantations KW - Structural complexity KW - Tree diversity KW - Tropical deforestation Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11676-022-01508-y VL - 34 IS - 3 SP - 641 EP - 653 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Kocsis, Timea A1 - Schnerch, Benjamin T1 - First record of Diplocephalus graecus (O. Pickard- Cambridge, 1873) in the Netherlands (Araneae, Linyphiidae) T2 - Nieuwsbrief spined N2 - The sheet weaver Diplocephalus graecus O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1873 is a common species in the holomediterranean region, but has been extending its northward distribution in the recent two decades. Our recording of the species marks the northernmost distribution of the species as of yet. With our recording, the number of species belonging to the Linyphiidae family in the Netherlands has been raised to 238. Y1 - 2024 SN - 0926-0781 VL - 41 SP - 7 EP - 9 ER -