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167
DENVER MUSEUM OF NATURE & SCIENCE
REPORTS
|
No. 3, July 2, 2016
success of these predators, populations living in impacted
areas may play very different roles in the food web than
those living in more pristine habitats.
Keywords: learning, behavior, contaminants, wolf spider,
heavy metals, cognition, pollution
Oral presentation
Spider metacommunities on the edge: local
and landscape scale processes on natural
habitat islands in an agricultural landscape
Ferenc Samu
1
, Orsolya Beleznai
1
, Éva Szita
1
, Erika
Botos
1
, Dóra Neidert
1
, András Horváth
2
1
Plant Protection Institute, Centre for Agricultural
Research, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 15
Herman Ottó Str., Budapest, H-1022, Hungary;
2
Institute of Ecology and Botany, Centre for Ecologi-
cal Research, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 2–4
Alkotmány Str., Vácrátót, H-2163, Hungary
samu.ferenc@agrar.mta.huNatural grasslands have shrunk to habitat islands in
most agricultural landscapes, still they play an important
role in maintaining biodiversity. To preserve spider com-
munities in grasslands patches it is important to study
the drivers of community processes both at local and
landscape scale. Metacommunity theory, in particular
the elements of metacommunity structure (EMS) frame-
work explores how regional processes, such as dispersal,
combine with local dynamics, such as species’ interac-
tions and niche partitioning, to affect species’ coexistence
across scales. In the studied habitat island situation we
wanted to know whether there are predictable, recurring
spider communities in the similar grassland patches. The
EMS framework is suitable to provide proximate answer by
analyzing the coherence, turnover and boundary clump-
ing in the species occurrence matrix. In the present study
we sampled 28 localities, the interiors and edges of 14
grassland patches bordering arable fields. The EMS results
indicated coherent species distributions, high species
turnover (lower than expected nestedness) and clumped
boundaries amounting to a Clementsian community orga-
nization. In a next stage of the analysis we used additional
abundance data and environmental variables to assess by
ordination techniques the strength and scale of dispersion.
By indicator species analysis we assessed the distinctness
of the expected communities. These independent analy-
ses reinforced the view of Clementsian communities by
showing a strong local habitat filtering effects driven by
plant species richness, strong dispersal up to 500 m land-
scape radius and a number of indicator species showing
the coherent structure of species composition. Thus, if we
intend to preserve diverse and characteristic spider com-
munities, then local habitat quality and management has
to have high priority, as well as there is an importance
of natural landscape elements which can exert positive
effects at considerable distances.
Keywords: community ecology, landscape ecology,
community assembly, diversity, nestedness, ecosystem
services, habitat island
Poster presentation
A new genus of the Subfamily Nopinae
(Araneae, Caponiidae) from Neotropical
region
Alexander Sanchez-Ruiz, Antonio Domingos Brescovit
Laboratório Especial de Coleções Zoológicas, Instituto
Butantan, Av. Vital Brasil, 1500, Butantã, São Paulo
05503-900, SP, Brazil
alex.sanchezruiz@hotmail.comA new genus,
Medionops
, is proposed for a group of
caponiid spiders found in the Neotropical region.
Nops
simla
Chickering and
Nops cesari
Dupérré are trans-
ferred to
Medionops
. Additionally, five new species are
described:
Medionops blades
n. sp. from Colombia,
Medionops claudiae
n. sp.,
Medionops murici
n.
sp. and
Medionops ramirezi
n. sp. from Brazil, and
Medionops venezuela
n. sp. from Venezuela. All these
species are Nopinae and also have the translucent
ventral extension of the membrane between the anterior
metatarsi and tarsi, and a very short, almost unnotice-
able, ventral translucent keel on the anterior metatarsi.
Additionally, also have the unpaired claw on all tarsi
elongate and dorsally reflexed and associated with a
membranous pulvillus; a character present only in
Nops
and
Nopsides
. Members of this genus differ from other
20
th
International Congress of Arachnology