Biology Faculty Articles
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
4-13-2018
Publication Title
Journal of Urban Ecology
Keywords
Urbanization, Disturbance, Urban-Rural Gradient, Edge Effects, South Florida
ISSN
2058-5543
Volume
4
Issue/No.
1
First Page
1
Last Page
6
Abstract
Urbanization typically leads to habitat destruction producing negative effects for native species, but some species may exploit these settings. This concept was investigated in the golden silk spider (Nephila clavipes), a large, formidable spider that commonly inhabits forest edges as well as open spaces in urban environments throughout its vast geographic range. Here, we compared variation of N. clavipes success as measured by body size, web size and web positioning along an urban–rural gradient in southern Florida. From morphological measurements collected in the field, urban spiders had 60% longer legs and 35% longer bodies than both park and rural spiders. Furthermore, webs of urban spiders were considerably larger and constructed significantly further from the ground than those of park and rural habitats. The combined observations of body size, web measurements and prominent web placement suggest that N. clavipesare successful exploiters of urban environments relative to park and rural settings in southern Florida. Although previous research has generally focused on the negative aspects of urbanization on animal welfare, this study provides evidence suggesting N. clavipes might benefit from these environmental changes.
NSUWorks Citation
Ripp, Jake; Omar T. Eldakar; Andrew C. Gallup; and Paul T. Arena. 2018. "The Successful Exploitation of Urban Environments by the Golden Silk Spider, Nephila clavipes (Araneae, Nephilidae)." Journal of Urban Ecology 4, (1): 1-6. doi:10.1093/jue/juy005.
ORCID ID
0000-0002-4807-4979
DOI
10.1093/jue/juy005
Comments
(c) The Author(s) 2018.
Published by Oxford University Press.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.